NATION OF LANGUAGE - MOOD BORED

"their live show is often a visceral and cathartic interpretation of their music"

NYC outfit Nation of Language have attracted an increasing, international audience with their danceable and impassioned takes on new wave and post-punk traditions. Their hopeful music—marked by soaring melodies, blinking synth lines, and frontman Ian Devaney’s towering voice—is a ray of light in an era of anxiety, cynicism, hatred, and snark.

As their sound and songwriting have continued to evolve across three albums, the band's fervent style has also grown to encompass an unmistakable quality of movement, garnering the band major accolades from NME, Rough Trade, Pitchfork, Clash & countless others. 2023 will see their third LP Strange Disciple released following performances at Pitchfork Festival, Primavera Sound and Outside Lands and setting up the band’s largest headline tours to date.

MOOD BORED

Across the seven tracks on their debut EP, 'Bored', Mood Bored introduce something new into the beloved canon of ‘music by and for 20-something existentialists. The title, Bored, reveals itself over the course of the EP to be, at once a sincere declaration of the restless impatience that young adults so often experience, and a sarcastic expression of resentment for how overwhelming, and not-so-boring, life is. This tension between sincerity and sarcasm is prevalent across Bored EP, which shifts almost manically between sentiments of near-nihilistic cynicism and hopefulness. Moments of humour lead to anger and despair, what appears gentle is revealed to be violent, but a persisting playfulness – both lyrically and instrumentally – grounds even the EP’s darkest moments of existential dread with an endearing self-awareness of its own melodramatics. Bored EP touches upon feelings of anger, sadness, and bouts of helplessness, all the while maintaining a light-hearted, humorous outlook on the world – because what else can you do?

The band met on the Music course at Fonty's School of the Arts in Tilburg, Netherlands and have been played extensively on Dutch radio stations such as 3FM, KinkRadio, and Radio Veronica. Mood Bored have already supported Wolf Alice, Sorry and Nation of Language across various cities in the Netherlands and participated in Popronde 2022, where they were tipped as one to watch in 2023. Mood Bored completed their first UK tour this past June and will be supporting Nation of Language on their full European tour this September.