Review Summary: the soundtrack to your quarter-life crisis
There are plenty of indicators to tell me I’m white: my rotten mayonnaise skin-tone is likely the most overt, but perhaps even more of a giveaway is that I am an avid listener of NPR. But it’s thanks to NPR that I learned about Party Naked Forever, the indie band Bethlehem Steel’s full-length debut. Before 2017, the band released two EPs—Grow Up (2013) and Docking (2015)—the first coming a year after their formation in 2012.
The release of Party Naked Forever through the Exploding in Sound label was foreshadowed by the single “Alt Shells.” This is a great song and a lot of great stuff has been written about it by intelligent people. Suffice to say, it’s a bit of everyday philosophical reflection, an anecdote about trying to find life’s purpose so you can justify waking up in the morning. “Alt Shells,” with its build from soft strumming to breakdown and finally the heavy kick, is a tremendous opener to a solid album.
On the whole, Party Naked Forever is the sort of music you listen to when it’s colder than frozen hell outside and you’re stuck indoors with your existential crises and self-doubt. So it was appropriate for the “bomb cyclone”—surprisingly not a Sharknado sequel—that swept across the East Coast this month. Lead singer, songwriter, and guitarist Rebecca Ryskalczyk’s style of playing shifts from a brooding drawn out chords to heavy, pop-punkish riffs. As a three-piece, the guitar and vocals tend to overwhelm the bass and drums, but one can still hear Patrick Ronayne and Jon Gernhart’s talent on their respective instruments.
The lyrics feed into the emotion created by the instrumentation. They are reflective but not intensely so; more quarter-life crisis than mid-life. Feelings of disassociation, dread, confusion, and emptiness. Basically the stuff one grapples with after realizing they’ve already lived twenty years and that the inescapable nothingness isn’t as far away as you thought—or something like that. “Finger It Out,” “Alt Shells,” and “Florida 2” speak strongly to those feelings. In “Florida 2,” Ryskalczyk sings, “Thought I found my way out, but I still feel hollow,” rising from a croon to a heavy drone. There’s also “Yolk,” the last song on the album, which literally starts with “*** you.” Even in the song titles hint at this whole millennial-sadness-thing. For example: “Klonopintrest.” Get it? It’s like Klonopin and Pintrest, but one word. Huh? HUH?
Ryskalczyk’s voice occasionally makes it sound like a long-lost Cranberries punk album—particularly on songs like “Klonopintrest” and “Donnie”—which is totally awesome. The punk influence is apparent, particularly on a song like “Untitled Entitlement,” a vivid track about what it’s like to have your body and privacy threatened by men. Not so much sang as spoken, Ryskalczyk’s vocals on “Untitled Entitlement” call to mind Henry Rollins’s spoken word tracks on Black Flag’s 1984 album Family Man. It’s a powerful track, and one line in particular stands out: “I know what it feels like to have someone else feel entitled to my body.”
Overall, Party Naked Forever is a really good album, but it’s pretty awesome if you fit the following criteria: your birth year starts with “199-,” you have no idea what you want to do with your life, and you’re constantly dogged by your own mind. Personally, I am all of these things so I really *** with this album. But even if you don’t fulfill those specifications, check out this album. It’s a solid piece of indie rock with a substantial punk feel. So shout-out to NPR Music for being way cooler than me and putting me onto this album and band.
