Goodnight Nurse - Alwaysand Never

Tue 3rd Oct, 2006 in Music Reviews

Whoever came up with the idea that punk rock does not have any variety should be shot…or forced to listen to Goodnight Nurse’s diverse assortment of a debut album, Always and Never. The album produces a vast array of sounds, superior instrumentality and catchy vocals for the listener, killing any possibility of insipidness or monotony. Contrary to the impression conveyed by the single for their first hit song My Only, Goodnight Nurse are a band like no other. The album provides a dramatically stark contrast between dark and light, heavy and soft and fast and slow. The instrumentality used in the album could, at times, be quite aptly described as hardcore/metal in nature. For this review, however, I will simply refer to them as punk rock as that is my personal classification of their sound.

Always and Never, while supplying a miscellaneous assortment of songs that are disparate from each other, is also not completely different to the sound of other punk rock groups. The song Suffocating Slow produces a sound which is analogous to the song Helena by American emo-rock quartet My Chemical Romance and Death Goes To Disco is not that all that dissimilar from the sound of their New Zealand punk rock counterparts Elemeno P.

Goodnight Nurse’s instrumentality breaks free from all previously held stereotypes about punk songs being made up of four chords and the same old drum beats. Goodnight Nurse are sheer artists at what they do. Their guitars are like fine paintbrushes, while the drumming provides the perfect canvas for the work of art that is Always and Never. There is not a weak link within this trio with passionate and catchy lead vocals being perfectly harmonised with angelic backing vocals – all of this backed up by heart pounding drumming which is quite novel in nature.

For example, Our Song changes from an African sounding drum beat with a cowbell to a unique offbeat and from soft whispering to a passionate proclamation of lyrics. Towards the end of the song (and throughout other parts of the album) the trio unexpectedly bring a piano in to play. While they are no Matt Bellamy, it is a refreshing change and once again exposes the band’s vast array of talents and diversity. Lyrically, the song also blows away any previous conceptions of punk bands and breaks away from commonly heard cliché’s. For example, the band trick the listener with the line “I cross my T’s…and close my eyes.” This is indicative of the innovative attitude that the trio with which have approached the album. One can’t help but think that by including that line Goodnight Nurse were thinking ‘stick that in your pipe and smoke it.’

When you take a look at Goodnight Nurse’s lyrics it becomes evident that the trio truly have come here to play ball with this album. From the song All Hail The Serpent Queen – Part 1 of 3 (Trilogy) vocalist Joel Little produces the pearler “Day turns to night and her poison grips me tight as the scars ache from her bite.” Little’s use of poignant, evocative and awe-inspiring poetry throughout the album exposes another dimension to Goodnight Nurse’s music and conjures up emotional images in the mind of the listener. It is talent, depth and diversity such as this which has enabled Goodnight Nurse to put New Zealand punk rock on the map and opened the public’s eyes to this newfound talent.

The best song on the album is, without question, Suffer. The song starts out in an aggressive metal manner, preparing the listener for an even heavier chorus that never comes. Instead the song slows into a soft sing-along accompanied by the use of “shoo-wop-shoo-wah’s” like that featured in your favourite 60s song. Towards the end of the song the ‘shoo-wop-shoo-wah’ sing-along is transformed into a superb pop punk anthem with Joel Little squeezing his seminiferous tubules to reach the higher notes. It is here that the trio expose their purpose in writing their incredibly profound and impressive debut album. “We suffer through everything, we try to please everyone, it’s not easy to do.” It is now obvious that Goodnight Nurse produced such a genre blurring, line crossing and tempo changing album to please as many fans as possible and to not confine themselves to the limitations of a single genre.

Goodnight Nurse’s complete destruction and disregard for boundaries and expectations is confirmed beyond all doubt with the bonus track number 14 – a rock cover of the well known R’n’B song Milkshake. Not much can be said for a song that has to be heard to be believed other than Joel Little’s Milkshake certainly brought me to the yard and damn right, it’s better than yours.

By producing such a mind-blowing and extremely varied debut album, Goodnight Nurse are sticking their middle fingers up at the geeky indie kid who suggested that punk rock doesn’t consist of any variety. The trio have taken one for the (punk rock) team and silenced the critics. Even if you don’t like Goodnight Nurse, you will appreciate the lengths to which they have gone to in order to avoid any chance of conformity. It is evident that the New Zealand trio are not just another derivative of the pioneers of pop punk.