Essential Albums: We’re Gonna Walk Around This City With Our Headphones On To Block Out The Noise by Nosferatu D2

Something odd happened the other day.  I was playing through this Nosferatu D2 album as I quite regularly do and for the first time, I felt the desire to actually open up the lyrics booklet.  Now this isn’t something I usually do, despite my perhaps unhealthy fascination with the words of songs above all else.  It’s odder still considering I’ve known some of these songs for about four years now.  Obviously I’ve played them all enough that I’ve picked up on most of the words, but there’s always the bits that slip through, particularly when you’ve got something as loud, fast and mumbling as this.

Reading through the booklet along with the record, I was quite frequently taken aback by just how many little elements I noticed that were entirely new to me.  Nothing too major, just clarifications of individual words, references to places, or just an appreciation of the wordplay involved.  I’ve gone on before about just how good of a songwriter Ben Parker is, but having it set out in written form really pushes that across.

This truly is one of those albums that I just never fail to get bored with.  Whatever the mood, it somehow manages to fit it.  Depressed about the state of the music industy?  Mojo Top 100 it is.  Feeling miserable at Christmas?  It’s Christmas Time (For God’s Sake) hits the spot.  Bombing along the motorway at 100 70?  Few things are going to top A Footnote.  It’s all over the place, but it’s held together by just how personal it all is.  Colonel Parker is perhaps the most brutally honest song I’ve ever heard that by the time you reach the anecdote about being stuck in Blockbuster on Flying Things & Pests you have no idea whether to sympathise or be scared.

Best of all, the entire album is now available on Bandcamp to buy, or just if you want to listen to the entire thing, which you will find in the handy little player below.  Don’t be put off by how rough around the edges it all sounds, as by the time you’re halfway through the record it’s an essential bit of it’s charm.  It’s a loud, messy and deeply personal album, which is just about all one can really ask for.