Nap Eyes' songwriter and guitarist Nigel Chapman, a biochemist by day, is the kind of preternaturally smart lyricist who inspires comparison to Bob Dylan, Lou Reed, and Van Morrison, and the many odd musicians who fall between. There's a lot of good connections one could make listening to something so clearly labored over but also seemingly effortless. (They record live to tape, with no overdubs.) If you haven't been listening to much rock music lately, Nap Eyes will make you remember why rock's good in the first place.
Hearing "Roll It," off the Nova Scotia band's forthcoming sophomore album, Thought Rock Fish Scale, I'd throw in some references to classic Alex G and the pop melodies of The Strokes. The first part of the album title sounds like a joke so maybe the second half is a Ghostface reference—why not! Underneath the sharp aesthetic, Chapman says, there's an argument about theory of mind: "You are trying to understand why you didn’t get your way. Imagining what the other person was thinking, did you get past your initial doubt to remember that other people have their own minds, different from yours? […] Evolution of the mind requires a spirit of inquiry and courage—to put it in a high-flown way ;)"
Listen to "Roll It" below before the incomparable Paradise of Bachelors releases Thought Rock Fish Scale on February 5.