Nitefire is in love with themselves on amorous EP 'Ameripop!'
As one of LA’s buzziest gangs of scruffy young lotharios, Nitefire channel the infectious energy of overpacked house shows and lustful teenage hedonism into a super-polished EP that gleefully embodies SoCal stereotypes with sexed-up, Star Spangled Banner-waving enthusiasm, even if some of their biggest influences come from across the Pond.
Purposefully emphasized with spirited punctuation, Ameripop! is possessed of a boundless kinetic energy that bounces like beachballs and smacks with the sugary brevity of bubblegum bursting across cherry Chapstick lips. Patently obsessed with love in all its forms, from sweet and sour to complicated and carnal, Nitefire’s hyper fixation on amorous pursuits runs amok throughout the EP’s tracklist as its central theme, crystalized beneath a sticky layer of confectionary production that shines like a freshly detailed drop-top 911 cruising along Santa Monica Boulevard.
Ameripop!’s opening tracks are unabashed Beatles worship, embracing the jangly approachability that defined 1960s British Invasion and continues to influence generations of teen beat garage rockers grown up on their parents’ LPs. It’s an easy entry point that allows Nitefire to seed their specific brand of youthful irreverence into a familiar framework that’s inherently magnetic with a proven track record of mass appeal. Despite the EP’s patriotic portmanteau, Ameripop! owes as much of it’s allegiance to the Union Jack as it does to Old Glory, even as Nitefire proudly professes otherwise.
After establishing their center with the affable opening, Nitefire quickly shift gears into more purely American sonic territory that more appropriately aligns with their thematic tendencies and lyrical style. “LA’s Got Gorgeous” leans into Top 40 alt rock straight out of the 1990s drawing the band directly into the orbit of inescapable heavyweights and kindred predecessors Third Eye Blind, blending glossy WeHo glamour with minivan approved bad boy posturing perfectly produced to appeal to nostalgic soccer moms and their rebellious daughters in equal measure.
Flipping the bird to the similarly titled British 1970s Bad Company banger, Nitefire slips their own patriotic parenthetical into “Feeling (Like Making American Love),” asserting cultural dominance over the romantic pursuits with references to natural wine and Levi’s harmonized with sunny acoustic strumming that recalls Sugar Ray at their most pervasive. It’s immediate and effervescent, like Coca-Cola or chilled rosé and goes down easy for a quick buzz and fades like a warm coastal sunset.
More of the Britpop influence crops up on “Saturday,” with a thick, shuffling beat and spiky arrangement that hits like Blur high on Supergrass, ending up dazed and confused somewhere in the vicinity of fellow LA power-poppers New Radicals. Album closer “Love Wont Tear Me Away” takes a similar approach but launches forward with a skittering motorik beat and nervous energy as Nitefire lays bare their manifesto as a a “real” rock band: “we don’t do disco, we don’t do ‘clash, we don’t do electro button mash” even as they layer in frenetic cowbell and flirt with digital loops a-la electroclash pioneers LCD Soundsystem.
Ameripop! doesn’t aspire to be anything more than charmingly narcissistic and candidly surface level, but the band’s unbridled enthusiasm and lust for life is ecstatically elastic and celebrates the beauty and chaos of youth and young manhood spent among the next generation of glitterati growing up in the City of Angels.
Nitefire will be releasing their debut LP later this year on Concord Records. Stream Ameripop! on Spotify and follow Nitefire on Instagram.
Upcoming Shows
NOV 07 - Knockout - San Francisco, CA - Tickets
NOV 08 - The Echo - Los Angeles, CA - Tickets
NOV 12 - Voodoo Room at the House of Blues San Diego - San Diego, CA - Tickets
NOV 15 - Globe Hall - Denver, CO - Tickets
NOV 17 - Kilby Court - Salt Lake City, UT - Tickets