The Core Competencies Of Napalmpom – Out Now!
Well friends, it’s finally upon us. The sophomore slump? Nah, we #nailedit with our 2nd LP. Order now at napalmpom.bandcamp.com – we promise to send you tracking #s within 72 hours of purchase (after it comes out).
The Core Competencies Of Napalmpom…a rock & roll thesis statement on the dangers of bands as brands? A wink and a nod to our own tendency to pat ourselves on the back? Or an album about playing to one’s strengths, even if those strenghts are woefully out of fashion? The Core Competencies Of Napalmpom is an album of fine lines. It is an album of fines lines played very, very loudly.
A much anticipated follow-up to 2014’s celebrated riff-heavy debut The Unconditional Love Of Napalmpom, the sophomore long player is a confident collection of hook-filled songs that manages to avoid playing simple rock & roll dress-up. By combining a genuine love of the big, guitarmony-filled 70s (think: Thin Lizzy, Queen, Boston) with thoughtful ruminations on the more eye-rolling tropes of the genre, musical and cultural, Napalmpom’s latest lands somewhere between rock revival and genuine indie rock songwriting. With big chords and ideas, the album is proof positive that the middle of the road is no place to drive…unless you’re passing cars on either side.
Initially imagined as a rock opera about the public and creative personalities of two seemingly very different iconic rockers – Axl Rose and Paul Westerberg – as told through the eyes of Guns N’ Roses/The Replacements member Tommy Stinson (to have been titled Tommy), the idea was quickly scrapped to make way for a collection of songs truer to what Napalmpom does best: write joyous, guitar-heavy, unashamed pop anthems about light subjects like love and death and living up to expectations with integrity.
Started as anything but a supergroup, this ragtag group of Canrock veteran sidemen (Forbidden Dimension, The Adam Brown, Beija Flor, Creeper, etc.) here flex not just their musical chops, but arguably for their first-time, their newly developed songwriting smarts. An album book-ended by songs about a judgment-free and important rebound and the intoxicating intimacy of new love respectively, finds the band both celebrating and thinking critically about what it means to write rock & roll songs in 2017. Each song is delivered through statement-making performances by frontman P.J. Lavergne’s charismatic and melodic vocal delivery.
An offhanded band joke about the Canadian music industry being the most convoluted Rube Goldberg machine imaginable, devised to receive little more than a pat on the back, turned into a not just inspiration for the album cover, but a singular mission statement that guided the album’s development: that, at the end of the day, no matter how ridiculous it is to lug archaic and heavy equipment across the country simply to push some air and play some out of fashion b chords, it’s worth it if you can proudly stand behind every note and word. With The Core Competencies of Napalmpom, the band is doing exactly that.
Tracklisting:
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06 – Bridges In The Sun
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Album credits:
Napalmpom:
Shawn Petsche – guitar
Guests: Caitlin Dacey (Public Animal/Bella Clava/Overnight), Kenna Burima (LoveWaves), Chris Nevile (The Von Zippers/No River), Lorrie Matheson (Fire Engine Red/Night Committee)
The Core Competencies Of Napalmpom Release Shows
- 02/24 – Calgary, AB: Napalmpom, Melted Mirror, Borscht @ Palomino
- 02/25 – Edmonton, AB: The Wet Secrets, Napalmpom + Guests @ The Buckingham
The 2017 Polaris Music Prize Victory Lap Tour w/ BA Johnson
- 04/19 – Canmore, AB: BA Johnston, Napalmpom
- 04/26 – Calgary, AB: BA Johnston, Napalmpom
- 04/28 – Regina, SK: BA Johnston, Napalmpom
- 04/29 – Saskatoon, SK: BA Johnston, Napalmpom
NAPALMPOM 
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