NIHILISTIC EASYRIDER
Shares two new songs ‘Weekend Fever‘ / ‘Facedown‘
Debut album, DELUXE EDITION Out July 25 via Run For Cover
Narrow Head’s frontman Jacob Duarte delivers a decade-spanning, masterfully crafted, hook-drenched mixtape fuelled by Y2K emo and young-dumb-pop-punk aesthetics
Nihilistic Easyrider | Photo credit: William Menjivar
With DELUXE EDITION, Nihilistic Easyrider’s Jacob Duarte 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 new double single ‘Weekend Fever’ / ‘Facedown‘, available today, gives a concise, almost literary dissection of the ennui of empty bars and unanswered texts on its leading side. His sentimentality quickly evaporates into a burst of tightly wound pop-punk optimism on the follow-up ‘Facedown,’ which trades the former track’s contemplative fatalism for a decidedly more spiteful take on rejection and interpersonal disconnect.
Watch / Listen ‘Weekend Fever‘ / ‘Facedown‘
Nihilistic Easyrider is the brainchild of Narrow Head frontman Jacob Duarte—but make no mistake, he’s not going solo. DELUXE EDITION is a mixtape of sorts, a collection of songs written at various intervals throughout Duarte’s 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 (and former tour-mate) Graham Hunt and features from Momma’s Allegra Weingarten and Ella Friedman, this debut album still provides with masterfully crafted and hook-drenched renditions of Duarte’s signature songwriting aesthetics.
These songs 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.
DELUXE EDITION’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.”
Pre-Order / Pre-Save DELUXE EDITION
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 – DELUXE EDITION album artwork
Nihilist Easyrider – DELUXE EDITION Tracklist
1. Getaway Plan
2. Weekend Fever
3. Facedown
4. Drive All Night
5. Don’t Get Scared Now
6. Well Kept Secret
7. Sanitorium
8. Smiles and Cries
9. Everything Is So F*cked Up
10. Howie On The Brain
11. Waiting On Someone
12. The Way It Crumbles
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