Debate time, friends. Here’s your prompt:
Is Nick Diamonds the hipster answer to Justin Timberlake?
This is what I’ve been asking myself lately anyway, at least since the last Islands record, Vapours, came out last month on Anti-. The song that’s really behind this particular topic of wonder, “No You Don’t,” has been bouncing around the internet since July, and while the general spin on Vapours is that it is more minimalistic than previous Diamonds offerings, I’ll argue that “No You Don’t” fits in better with the chaotic, multi-layered music that characterized earlier work.
As a track, “No You Don’t” is a song of reasonably good advice, from the opening lyrics warning the listener not to buy dope from a man you don’t know through the very end of the song. Swirling between, around, and over the top of the lyrics is a churning beauty of a hook, adorned like a Christmas tree with quacking guitar licks, old school keyboard tones (perhaps on marimba setting?), and a delightfully off-kilter drum machine.
As is often the case when it comes to his work, it is Diamonds’ delivery that sells the moment (and also begs the Timberlake comparison, though we are talking more SNL guest appearance JT than the FutureSex/LoveSounds iteration), from the split-second falsetto feints to the near-hound dog pronunciation of long “o” sentence-enders (i.e., brew, stew, do, you, etc.).
Sometimes when you let a few weeks go by between an album’s release and your first serious listen, you end up never really getting into the material. Don’t let this happen to you on this one.
