By Jordan Lawrence

Photo Courtesy of Naked Gods

“Naked Gods are a ‘hapless burlypop prog-punk’ quintet based out of the mountains of western North Carolina.”

This description starts off the self-penned bio of Naked Gods, a restless and thrilling Boone, N.C.-based band that has been making varied but familiar indie rock for just about four years. The genre tag is silly, but it’s not an all-together bad assessment of their energetic delivery. There’s a laid-back, almost Americana feel to their songwriting, and singer Seth Sullivan is most certainly burly — solidly built and approaching six feet, with a fulsome black beard. Their songs are filled with hooks that, while not really traditional, are still catchy enough to get away with the “pop” tag. As for prog, the dexterity and complexity of the band’s wondrous and kinetic guitar-monies earn the modifier easily.

Still, like every song name and album title Naked Gods assign to their work, the description is meant more for fun than anything else. “Hapless’ is just a funny word to describe the five of us,” says guitarist Christian Smith. “We’re actually not very hapless, but we kind of look like idiots and vagabonds, so that was just kind of amusing. Seth’s a big dude with a big beard, and there’s a lot of facial hair and whatnot, so I guess that’s where the burly thing comes from. The rest of it is kind of a joke, but also kind of serious. The music is pop music. It is rock & roll, but it’s also hopefully really melodic and catchy and poppy. Even though it’s not punk rock, it’s informed to a large degree by it.”

The decision to name their lithe and powerful sophomore LP No Jams seems less sensible. For the most part, the album is all jams. Guitar tones melt down into raw, powerful catharses that suggest Dinosaur Jr at a backporch mountain jam. The band co-opt Rolling Stones swagger in a way that Spoon fans will instantly adore. Yet, these songs remain unquestionably and explosively their own. At first blush, calling this album No Jams seems like blatant false advertising.

But a trip to see one of Naked Gods’ raucous live shows will clear up the misunderstanding. It’s on stage that the band truly jams, letting loose in powerful performances that allow the players to push every tune and rhythm to the breaking point. Sullivan yells and beats the hell out of a tambourine. Fellow guitarist Brian Knox and Smith stare each other down, dueling through shrieking distortion as they wrest live-wire harmonics from what should be jarring chaos. The tempos and tantrums on No Jams are tame in comparison.

“Sometimes you can lose the songs if everything is blown the fuck out, or if I’m screaming instead of singing,” Sullivan says. “Live, there’s a visual element. On the record, you don’t have that to bridge any kind of sonic gaps. You have to do the songs as much justice as you can.”

The dichotomy between Naked Gods’ loose delivery and the seriousness with which they pursue their compositions is mirrored in No Jams’ lyrics. Many of these songs pair nostalgia for childhood with a fear of being unable to grow up. “Shaq & Diane” is a great example. Between piercing bouts of shock-and-awe riffage, Sullivan intones, “All the early risers/ Come home/ Well, welcome ‘cause we’ve missed you.” His sly delivery achieves an air of both jealously and pity as he addresses friends who have relented to the 9-to-5 grind.

“We’re just playing rock & roll,” Sullivan says, summing up the band’s philosophy. “We make each other laugh a lot, and we like to have fun. We take the thing that is the music really, really seriously because that’s the thing that we’re doing, but the rest of it, you might as well have a laugh.”