NIHILISTIC EASYRIDER releases debut album DELUXE EDITION today via
Run For Cover
Watch the video for ‘Well Kept Secret’ HERE
Nihilistic Easyrider | Photo credit: Adam Kerner
Nihilistic Easyrider (Narrow Head frontman Jacob Duarte) releases his debut album DELUXE EDITION today via Run For Cover. Make no mistake, Duarte isn’t going solo. DELUXE EDITION is a mixtape of sorts, a collection of songs written at various intervals throughout Duarte’s 10+ year career. These songs traverse a wide-range of stylistic references, from saccharine Y2K emo and young-dumb-and-full-of pop punk to Soviet fuzz fueled alt and pure Evan Dando-core verse-chorus-verse-chorus-done pop rock. Brought to life by a cast of characters including Narrow Head drummer Carson Wilcox, producer Graham Hunt, plus features from Momma’s Allegra Weingarten and Etta Friedman, this debut album still provides with masterfully crafted and hook-drenched renditions of Duarte’s signature songwriting aesthetics.
On the album’s focus track ‘Well Kept Secret reaches the heights of DELUXE EDITION’s romantic saturation. Available today alongside a third video by director Nate Kahn, the single blends twin guitar and synth lines with digitally corrupted flourishes into a rich yet unassuming dose of psychedelic-tinged emo pop, over which Duarte ruminates upon one of life’s most dangerous vices: those mutually destructive relationships that you not only can’t seem to quit, but further have no intention of quitting in the first place.
Watch the video for ‘Well Kept Secret’ below.
With DELUXE EDITION, Nihilistic Easyrider provides us with diaristic vignettes of a life in perpetual motion, offering a more introspective view into the preoccupations of a songwriter whose life revolves around the stage but is ultimately lived elsewhere. Its tracks wade in the messiness of romantic misfires and burnt brain synapses, but from the perspective of the moment when the drudgery and deflated disappointment of real, day-to-day life comes crashing back in. Hunt’s production smarts help to further bring Duarte’s tales of loneliness, anticipation, and fraying sanity into the richness of real life’s mired complexities, providing a vibrant backing cast of drone-bee synth swells, barroom piano stabs, rattling acoustic guitars, and tribal-tat coded record-scratch aesthetics.
It’s earliest piece (‘Facedown’) began as a joke between Duarte and Wilcox when they were just 19, while the most recent (‘Well Kept Secret’) emerged midway through the recording of the record itself. During a brief touring intermission in February 2024, Duarte and Wilcox absconded to Wisconsin for 10 days to track DELUXE EDITION with the engineering assistance of Graham Hunt and Shannon Connor, both of whom can also be heard playing bass and keyboards throughout the album. Hunt took on the additional role of producing DELUXE EDITION, which Duarte credits as a driving force behind the record’s sonically lush arrangements.
The touring cycle in support of Narrow Head’s 2023 acclaimed LP, Moments of Clarity, has been nothing short of non-stop, including dates alongside such acts as Interpol, Snail Mail, High Vis, Citizen, Basement, Senses Fail, and Saves the Day. Paradoxically, the road wear seems to lend DELUXE EDITION an added warmth and richness, providing a space for Duarte to recenter his songwriting in a more organic and off-the-cuff studio setting, while also finding many of Duarte’s tour companions. As Duarte puts it, “Narrow Head and this project are equally big parts of me, and I need to do them both, but I always know if a riff is going to become a Narrow Head song or a Nihilistic Easyrider song the moment I first write it. In a funny way, these Nihilistic Easyrider songs are closer to the music I always wanted to make growing up — they’ve got that real ’90s and 2000’s emo feel that I grew up loving and wanting to channel. When I write for Narrow Head I’m writing for what the band needs, whereas these songs are more like, a personal diary of growing up through music.”
Nihilistic Easyrider – DELUXE EDITION album artwork
Nihilistic Easyrider hits the road for a North American headlining tour in September with On Being an Angel joining as support. The run kicks off with hometown performances in Houston and Austin ahead of Chicago, Toronto, NYC, D.C. dates and more. See below for a full list of dates. Tickets are on sale here.
Nihilistic Easyrider Live Dates:
Sep 12: Houston, TX – Secret Group
Sep 13: Austin, TX – Mohawk (Inside)
Sep 16: Chicago, IL – Subterranean
Sep 17: Bloomington, IN – The Bishop
Sep 18: Detroit, MI – Parts & Labor
Sep 19: Toronto, ON – Sneaky Dee’s
Sep 20: Buffalo, NY – Rec Room
Sep 22: Ridgewood, NY – TV Eye
Sep 23: New York, NY – Night Club 101
Sep 24: Philadelphia, PA – PhilaMOCA
Sep 25: Washington, DC – DC9
Sep 26: Raleigh, NC – Kings
Sep 27: Atlanta, GA – Aisle 5
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