AMG Review of City Of Rotten Eyes

Nate Knaebel
All Music Guide

Married couple Marsh and Daphne Nabors have been making music together for decades, first in the Comas in the early '90s, and then as the Overnight Lows. At nearly 15 years in the making, City of Rotten Eyes is actually their first official album together under the latter moniker. Joined by Paul Artigues of New Orleans' Die Rötzz on drums, the Nabors (who also put in work with Memphis' Lover!) play with the confident abandon of punk lifers. Though not exactly tight, they have the strength of a battle-seasoned outfit, while maintaining the snotty energy of newbies. Furious, fun, and a little stupid from time to time, City of Rotten Eyes fits snugly within a punk lineage that extends through any number of cantankerous, knuckleheaded troublemakers over the years -- from, say, the Gizmos up to labelmates the Carbonas, to signal but one path. The Lows have constructed an album from a simple formula of punchy melodies, skuzzy guitars, and one drunken chorus after another. There are pop hooks here, but they're never cloying, tending to end up in the gutter rather than preserved in studio glitz and gloss. Indeed, the Overnight Lows aren't exactly reinventing the wheel; in fact sometimes they trip right over it, ending up a little bruised but no worse for wear. It's precisely that dogged energy, however, that pushes this record up and over the occasionally low bar set for such acts.