Not Even Regret, Nate

[Editor's note #1: this pic from Bandcamp was the only one I could find of the artist online]

What stands out to me each time I return to Not Even Regret is how it's been made by someone with an obvious passion and ear for pop song writing.* "Pop songwriting" in a post-Beatles rock & roll sense, because, while it isn't hard to hear these songs in the context of, say, Sugar, Big Star, or even the Strokes (shout out to "Losing Track of Time," which sounds like a b-side from First Impressions of Earth), it becomes more challenging to think of these songs in conversation with the notion of Top-40 alternative.

Where this shit really sings is in its tendrils of darkness. The sunny optimism of the musical composition and arrangement of a song like "Good/Bad Faith," which seems to be ostensibly about being willing to take someone at their word, is deliciously betrayed by phrasings like "your simple little mind," and the suggestion that once "we're all listening" there isn't actually anything to be said. Same thing holds in "Time Well Wasted," a lovely anthem to thumbing in a C+ effort and not feeling great about it in reflection. Even the album opener "One Last Try," which flirts with one of my least favorite genres of song—small band singing about being a small band—has the kind of wry, gentle negativity that makes the sugar sound that much sweeter. Special shout out to "Social Crimes" and all the songs about being awkward in public.


*Let me get this out of the way: this music is written and performed by my uncle. It is weird for me to write about it seriously for all kinds of reasons, not the least of being that my natural response to the artwork of the people in my life is to tell them that it sucks and they did a bad job, because that's the only way I have to relate to people when I love them and because I am a small, jealous person. Truly, I am a shining member of the community and a must-have at any gala event. It is also weird to write about this music somewhat fawningly, as I am about to do, because this is a guy who I got drunk and played bingo with at a Port Richmond dive bar right before the pandemic hit. I say all this to say that this is weird and that my word probably cannot be taken completely seriously, even if, as I am about to do, I endeavor to be as down-the-middle with my review as possible. Fuck with me, I suppose.