The wait was softened by an exciting live album (At Sam’s Town Point) and a successful solo release from frontman Patton Magee (Last Cowboy on the Prairie), but that can’t compete with a new studio album from the seven-piece band. Cut fast and loose in Michael Rault’s Joshua Tree living room studio, The Nude Party ditch the polish and chase the dust on their aptly titled new LP Look Who’s Back.

“We’ve found that rock ‘n’ roll is best made fast, without time to second-guess decisions and throw hurdles at your own feet. This record is punchy, it’s fun, and it’s not overthought. The way a good rock ‘n’ roll album should be,” the now independent and New York-based band members said in the press release. And that’s exactly how it comes across: seven friends crammed among cables and pizza boxes, kicking out jangly, Stonesy riffs with basement-show abandon, scrappy and charming.

Musically, the nine freshly baked songs are a sweaty melting pot of rock, country, blues, and psych, while the lyrics express the messy return from fantasy (Hollywood hills, city lights, desert highways) to harder truths about loneliness, fairweather friends, and self-doubt, with resilience as the common thread: “Wasted time is time spent a-wasting // Half my life with you // Life is but a dream, but here’s the funny thing // It’s also what you wake up to” (from Honey for the Barflies). Chasing glory, dodging ghosts, and turning up the volume.

Look Who’s Back—produced by Michael Rault—is out now digitally (self-released). Featuring Patton Magee (vocals, harmonica, guitars), Shaun Couture (vocals, guitars), Connor Mikita (drums), Alec Castillo (bass), Don Merrill (keyboards, piano), Austin Brose (percussion), and Jon “Catfish” Delorme (pedal steel, dobro), with guest vocals by Lady Apple Tree and Pearl Charles on Sweetheart of the Radio.

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