It was obvious from the beginning that the eccentrics of Nurses could not be merely confined to wax.
For a start, they’re tellingly signed to Dead Oceans Records, the home of fellow idiosyncratic-musers Dirty Projectors. For another, the packaging for their lo-fi debut, ‘Hangin’ Nothin’ But Our Hands Down’, came with a lyric sheet written in a 4-point-font – and a tiny magnifying glass to read it, it’s front cover designed and spray-painted by the band themselves. For its follow-up ‘Apple’s Acre’, the band settled in Portland where most of the album was recorded in the attic of a Victorian House.
What does all this mean? It means attention to detail is evidently important – and this is something that translates directly into Nurses’ music. For the last five years, core band members, frontman Aaron Chapman and John Bowers, have lived in nomadic transience, sacrificing static normalcy in order to concentrate on their music. It’s another diligence that has mostly paid off.
In comparison to their debut, although there’s nothing quite as chilling here as the likes of ‘Curse of Marjorie’, sonically the mood tends to segue between sobriety and optimism.
Opener ‘Technicolour’ is a good choice to introduce the bands melancholic yet joyful sound, elegant harmonies adding warmth to Chapman’s nasal and somewhat tortured vocals. Penultimate track ‘Lita’ is drenched in sadness and earnesty, while ‘Caterpillar Playground’, an amalgamation of almost childlike jubilation and vulnerability, displays the band at their most euphoric. With a whistling, chiming riff that cascades over and over, it’s marred only by Chapman’s poignant lyrics, “paid them off with our disease.” It’s almost like the band can’t resist the urge to rain on their own parade when things get too upbeat.
But unfortunately like its predecessor, ‘Apple’s Acre’ is front-heavy, beginning to taper off midway with ‘Bright Eyes’, ‘What Then’ and ‘Winter’ coasting by without much of an impression. Luckily though for Nurses, their triumphs far outweigh their tendency for mediocrity, meaning that their second album is a bold success.
6/10
Words by Dannii Leivers
