Alex Napping

Austin,TX-based quartet, Alex Napping, have been turning heads around their hometown with their incredible live performances and recently signed with Punctum Records for the release of their debut album. This Is Not A Bedroom, out September 23rd, 2014, delivers a batch of energetic songs that are both purposeful and raw. The band, comprised of singer and guitarist Alex Cohen, guitarist Adrian Haynes, bassist Tomas Garcia-Olano, and drummer Andrew Stevens, formed in September 2013 around songwriter Cohen’s solo recordings.

“If this is not a bedroom, then, at the very least, it’s somewhere you shouldn’t sleep with someone.” says a lot about Cohen, lead singer and guitarist in Alex Napping, when asked about the title of their debut album. She has a way with a phrase, both in person and in her music, that’s at once charming and thought provoking. The music found on their debut album, This Is Not A Bedroom, shoots a wink to their influences that run the gamut of Pavement to Land of Talk and Broken Social Scene, with a throwback to the vocal melodies and guitar riffs of early 90s indie rock and the driving and rhythmic drones of the oughts. That said, it’s the poetic charm that Cohen brings to the band that rewards repeat listeners. Scattered amongst the six songs on the album are tales of fucked love, lost homes, failed dreams, wandering youth, and the ability to carry on in the face of it all and it’s done with an astonishingly wry lyricism.

For a band that’s less than a year old, they’ve already left a big footprint in the hotbed of music that is their hometown of Austin, TX. Live shows are staggeringly fierce and those of us not living in the Music Capitol will get their chance to see them live as the band begins touring this fall. It’s on stage that the reality that these four musicians are a true band… the rhythm section is incredibly tight and lays a beat that allows the two guitarists to intertwine, ebb and flow, while Cohen’s vocals dance above the top. In short, Alex Napping is a band for fans of unrestrained emotion coupled with careening pop music.

This Is Not A Bedroom is out September 23rd, 2014 on Punctum Records.