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Remember what it was like being a bored teenager? The awkward feelings of being frustrated and anxious all the time. Most of us just took it out on our friends and parents, not Erik Nervous. The self-described “Loner with a four track” lays it all out in his music. His spastic jerky delivery (on all the instruments he plays on this 7”) combined with his apprehensive vocals are the perfect combination! Punk is built on this formula but rarely do we have somebody like Erik to execute it in the way it should be done. Building on what he started with the Warm Ratio 7”, this EP certifies that Erik is right where others strive to be. Don’t snooze on this one!
Our take: I was in love with Erik Nervous from moment #1, and this new 6-songer just continues the obsession. If you're a fan of what's now been pretty much cemented as the Northwest Indiana sound (i.e. Coneheads, CCTV) then it's more or less a given that you'll like Erik Nervous a lot too... his music has that same nervous energy, not to mention that same weird and claustophobic guitar sound, that everyone came to really love on the Coneheads LP. However, Erik Nervous tends to sprinkle his tunes with more liberal doses of pop fairy dust, and while that's perhaps slightly more evident on his first EP for Lumpy Records, you definitely get some of that here, particularly on the synth-driven "People Falling Over," which is by far my favorite track on the record. Teen Distortion Art Junk Music may be a little faster and harder than the previous Erik Nervous stuff, but I'm sure there's more than a fair share of people who like this even more for it. As for me, I'm just going to continue lapping up whatever this guy puts out. Highly recommended.
Our take: US pressing of this collection of Erik Nervous’s previous releases. Just to annoy everyone, this version actually features one track that wasn’t on the Drunken Sailor version, while that version features a track that doesn’t appear here. Does that mean that you need to buy both? Well, that’s certainly the implication, but obviously they’re merely courting the die-hards. Anyway, we carried several of these releases back when they originally came out, but for some reason I think they sound even better together on this LP. Maybe it was the plan to bring together these EPs into a ripping full-length right from the start, but if not it sure was a happy accident, because just like the Buzzcocks’ classic Singles Going Steady, Assorted Anxieties sounds more like a coherent LP than a compilation. If you haven’t heard Erik Nervous, he often gets grouped with the whole Coneheads / Liquids scene, presumably because he’s from the same part of the country, relies on some quirky rhythms, and writes broadly pop-based music. I suppose that fans of those groups probably would be into Erik Nervous, but he definitely has his own thing going on as well. In particular, Assorted Anxieties is a lot more stylistically diverse than either of those bands, dabbling in everything from mutant funk to slightly dreamy, Flying Nun-style post-punk to saccharine pop and even metal (there’s a pretty legit cover of “The Trooper” by Iron Maiden). It’s all well-developed, well-recorded, and well-performed… despite Erik Nervous’s well-deserved reputation for being prolific, nothing here feels tossed-off, underdeveloped, or otherwise less than awesome, so if you’re a fan of this type of quirky, catchy punk (i.e. you follow labels like Neck Chop, Total Punk, Lumpy, Erste Theke Tonträger, and Drunken Sailor) now’s as good a time as any to get on the Erik Nervous train.
Our take: I was in love with Erik Nervous from moment #1, and this new 6-songer just continues the obsession. If you're a fan of what's now been pretty much cemented as the Northwest Indiana sound (i.e. Coneheads, CCTV) then it's more or less a given that you'll like Erik Nervous a lot too... his music has that same nervous energy, not to mention that same weird and claustophobic guitar sound, that everyone came to really love on the Coneheads LP. However, Erik Nervous tends to sprinkle his tunes with more liberal doses of pop fairy dust, and while that's perhaps slightly more evident on his first EP for Lumpy Records, you definitely get some of that here, particularly on the synth-driven "People Falling Over," which is by far my favorite track on the record. Teen Distortion Art Junk Music may be a little faster and harder than the previous Erik Nervous stuff, but I'm sure there's more than a fair share of people who like this even more for it. As for me, I'm just going to continue lapping up whatever this guy puts out. Highly recommended.
Our take: US pressing of this collection of Erik Nervous’s previous releases. Just to annoy everyone, this version actually features one track that wasn’t on the Drunken Sailor version, while that version features a track that doesn’t appear here. Does that mean that you need to buy both? Well, that’s certainly the implication, but obviously they’re merely courting the die-hards. Anyway, we carried several of these releases back when they originally came out, but for some reason I think they sound even better together on this LP. Maybe it was the plan to bring together these EPs into a ripping full-length right from the start, but if not it sure was a happy accident, because just like the Buzzcocks’ classic Singles Going Steady, Assorted Anxieties sounds more like a coherent LP than a compilation. If you haven’t heard Erik Nervous, he often gets grouped with the whole Coneheads / Liquids scene, presumably because he’s from the same part of the country, relies on some quirky rhythms, and writes broadly pop-based music. I suppose that fans of those groups probably would be into Erik Nervous, but he definitely has his own thing going on as well. In particular, Assorted Anxieties is a lot more stylistically diverse than either of those bands, dabbling in everything from mutant funk to slightly dreamy, Flying Nun-style post-punk to saccharine pop and even metal (there’s a pretty legit cover of “The Trooper” by Iron Maiden). It’s all well-developed, well-recorded, and well-performed… despite Erik Nervous’s well-deserved reputation for being prolific, nothing here feels tossed-off, underdeveloped, or otherwise less than awesome, so if you’re a fan of this type of quirky, catchy punk (i.e. you follow labels like Neck Chop, Total Punk, Lumpy, Erste Theke Tonträger, and Drunken Sailor) now’s as good a time as any to get on the Erik Nervous train.