With a name like Nolan Potters Nightmare Band, it should come to absolutely no surprise that this Austin Texas sextet are fucking out there. Orchestrated by frontman, singer and flute player, Nolan Potter, Nolan Potters Nightmare Band can be best described as sounding like Sufjan Stevens in a book written by JRR Tolkien.
Their debut album, (and only release to date) Nightmare Forever, came out in 2019, and since then it’s been hard to tell what is to come next for the band. At no point on the album does it sound like a band making their first record. They have a clear, cinematic point that they consistently pull off in such a complete way that it sounds closer to a band creating their long-awaited opus. I honestly don’t think I could wrap my head around a more complex, yet grounded album, but I happily challenge them to blow my mind again.
Songs like Caberfae Peaks and A Wizard of the Wind are pretty astonishing sounding prog rock tracks, drenched in lyrical mythology and musical other worldliness. The most impressive thing about them is I thought I didn’t like music like this as a whole. Shows what I fucking know.
KEY TRACK: Caberfae Peaks – This near five-and-a-half-minute audio odyssey takes you on a journey to question how you really feel about the use of the flute in modern rock music.
FOR FANS OF: Sufjan Stevens, Psychedelic drugs, the flute.
