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STEPHEN HARGREVAES
managing editor
UWindsor Lance
Issue 33, Volume 85
March 6, 2013

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THE NEFIDOVS – Better Wake Up! (self-released)

Windsor’s favourite, “don’t call us a ska band; were a punk band with horns” is back on with a new shiny circle chock full of … well, punk with horns.

The band has effectively made their 2011 album Set Faces to Stunned a coaster with last weekend’s release of Better Wake Up!, a 12-track assault that captures a band that has become one of the tightest the city has ever seen. Not to completely discredit Set Faces to Stunned, but The Nefidovs have grown so much since then and every growth spurt is evident on their new disc.

It’s impressive when a live band— they are first-and-foremost a live band— can successfully bottle the energy and spirit of the sweat and spit-valve saliva drenched
stage that makes their fans go ape. Musically the release is a full-on pogo party, mixing third-wave ska, Oi!, Califomia punk, cabaret and— dare I say it— a pinch of early Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Lyrically, the record is a lot darker; a post-industrial unemployment line wrapping through the residential streets and factory gates, over the beer soaked pub carpets of their home town.

The production is good, almost too good to be punk; don’t wony it’s not a slick Blink-182 bubble gum wrapper, it’s more NOFX than that, which still usually too produced for a punk record but with The Nefidovs it works.

The horns are clean, the bass grooves, the snare pops and the vocals are still clear even through the grit and gravel that the band’s vocalist gargles throughout every live show.

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