Halifax, Nova Scotia outfit Nap Eyes emerged in 2014 with Whine of the Mystic, a spare, bookish pop record indebted to the Velvet Underground and the homespun regional scenes known for jangling in the 1980s. It was reissued in 2015 by Paradise of Bachelors, the label behind Nap Eyes’ incoming followup, Thought Rock Fish Scale. Like its predecessor, the album was recorded live to tape with no overdubs. The first track made public is “Roll It”, a song intent on enacting its title, with a softly cyclical groove and the erudite vocalist Nigel Chapman’s singsong, lilting refrain. Except for the bridge: a halftime, plainspoken lament about whether or not the narrator is in fact the thing that’s “not right here,” to which listeners will kindly insist, no.
