On the cover a boy sits on a diving board, watching a neon Ferris wheel lit up in a six-pointed Big Star. The allusion is subtle but well-made, for the tubed-out guitar hooks, the summer harmonies, the spiteless praise of youth, dreams and senses, both physical and emotional — from “David Bromberg singing, in a black voice in a rental car” to “That day when we had all day…a fire like a god burning in us” — are all offered in a nervy, original voice.
Self-recorded and self-produced (with the aid of Michael Praytor) in a communally run studio space in downtown St. Louis, the six-song Back To My Senses is strong, song-based rock with apt but unpretentious twang, finding exhilaration in wafting melodies, incandescent guitars and thoughtful images of words and sound. The prettiest moment comes at the start of the finest lyric, “Dark Light”: a drum ticks, guitar and mandola weave patterns vivid and sweet, before electric overdrive sets deep the “Let’s Go Downtown” hook: “There’s a darker light shining on this street/Colored hair, kids and deadbeats/The girl from the county, convinced that she’s been reborn/And on cue a Buick of young men lay on the horn.” But you have to hear it (of course), the way such smart, thick lines come to rock ‘n’ roll life, Adam Reichman’s voice exultant, the band backing hard as hell into every syllable.
Nadine features vestiges of Sourpatch — Reichman on guitar, Todd Schnitzer on bass, Bill Reyland on drums — and adds erstwhile Wagon-er Steve Rauner on guitar, lap steel, organ and accordion. To my ears, Sourpatch’s happily messy folk-rock and bastardized cowpunk never found telling focus, an assured voice. Nadine, I think, will. And if the mastering betrays some volume dips, or if Reichman’s furtive vocals could be more up-front, the result still shines like no EP I’ve heard this year. This debut rings with a freeing optimism, the soul of good rock ‘n’ roll from Sun to Sub Pop. “Overtones of better days/More alive than dead,” Reichman sings on “David Bromberg”; “Keep it all together now/Relief is up ahead.” And here, in this sparkling, exciting record.