This magic moment

Let’s take a spin through Reno band Present’s forthcoming self-titled album. It opens with “Schemer,” a bluesy, stony riff-fest, with a swaggering backbeat and a rocking bridge. Guitarist and vocalist Tobin Jones sounds melodic, even when singing lyrics like, “Scratch your face and make you go crazy.”

“It’s about a naughty boy,” says bassist Nick Ramirez, laughing.

Then, the second song, “The Bar,” has raunchy music and even raunchier lyrics—something about “put it in the backside, you’ll be begging me for more” and “I’m gonna give it to your grandma.” The music sounds like a mix of ’70s metal and ’80s punk—in other words, it sounds like ’90s grunge.

For track three, the album downshifts for “Seagull,” an earnest acoustic strummer, about Jonathan Livingston Seagull, no less. Then, the record ratchets back up slightly for “Build,” a song about a haunted house. It veers into Minutemen power trio territory during the guitar solo.

Then, there’s “You’re the Best,” an unabashed, unironic love song—which might seem strange coming only a couple of tracks after lewd and rude “The Bar,” but the record is sequenced well enough that the songs can seem disparate, though the album is cohesive.

Track six is “World News,” possibly the most “’90s-sounding” song on an album by a band that could easily be described as “grunge revival”—though certainly on the more melodic and tuneful end of that spectrum.

“We’re all old ’90s guys,” says Ramirez. The band members—Jones, Ramirez and drummer Roger Rowland—have been active in the local music scene since, well, the ’90s.

“Moon,” track seven, actually dates back to Jones’ high school band, Blue Mourning, and has the ’90s flavor to prove it. In the ’80s, there was ’60s nostalgia. During the ’90s, everybody was obsessed with the ’70s. In the last decade, there was a major ’80s revival. If the pattern holds true, Present should benefit from the inevitable ’90s nostalgia that should be kicking in any day now.

Also, this seems like a good point to mention what a great job Rowland does holding everything together and throwing in some cool drum fills.

Track eight, “Part of the Show,” hit closest to the mark of the description the band members themselves offer to describe Present: “If Kyuss and R.E.M. had a baby.” Many of Present’s songs are reminiscent of the stoner rock of Kyuss or the jangle pop of REM, this song evokes both.

“So Quiet,” track nine, is an acoustic ballad, vaguely in the vein of Jar of Flies-era Alice in Chains or maybe Soul Asylum—definitely a flannel-wearing tune. Jones writes the lyrics, and they range from the character-based narratives of the rockers to the more personal, introspective ballads. The band name is more in line with the latter category.

“It’s a philosophical thing about living in the moment,” says Jones.

“Far Away Sky,” the album closer, is a slow song with what sounds like an angelic choir, but is actually multiple tracks of Jones’ falsetto. It seems miles away from “Schemer,” but the album moves forward in a logical way. The band members credit producer Rick Spagnola of Dogwater Studios for the sequencing.

“I see the album as the story of this cocky guy who slowly matures and gets more sophisticated,” says Ramirez.