Pesaro, Italy melodic ska punk rockers NH3 are back with “Take Your Time,” a new single for an important anniversary: celebrating twenty years on stage and on the road across Europe.
Born in Pesaro in the summer of 2002, the band reached their maturity in 2011 with the album “Heroes Without a Face.” For the occasion, they changed their name from Ammoniaka to NH3, sanctioning the transition and marking the break from the adolescent phase to a more conscious approach to making music.
Their 2019 release “Superhero,” managed to combine the most diverse influences in NH3’s sound, from hardcore punk to ska-funk. The album was released in Europe by Long Beach Recordings and in North America by Canada’s People of Punk Rock. It was followed by a surprise single, “Waiting Room,” a Fugazi classic revisited in collaboration with Chris #2 of the American band Anti-Flag (we covered it HERE).
Their new single “Take Your Time” pushes the band’s creative boundaries, bringing in new and fresh rhythms and positive vibes that will literally glow your day.
As is often the case, it is in the lyrics that NH3 find their communicative dimension, and “Take Your Time” does not miss an opportunity to combine music with words that speak to the listener’s heart.
“The single takes shape with the precise idea of making people reflect on the passage of time, time as a place to inhabit rather than something to chase and measure.” – comments the band. “A point of view that without a retrospective stamp fails to understand the present preventing any future projection.”
“In a time when he is asked to function before he exists, the protagonist immerses himself in thinking about a path that has led him to recognize himself. “TakeYour Time” slows down the rhythms of a band that reached the 20-year mark, stops and looks at the road traveled, realizes what is left and wonders about future prospects. NH3 have never just written stories, however, so in the narrative of this single lies a condemnation of a present that chases “doing” without leaving room for “being.””
To expound a bit more on its meaning, we have teamed up with the band’s Simone Gabrielli, who sat down with us and shared a short, but important and interesting essay on “Take Your Time”
The single was produced, arranged and recorded by Simo Perini (formerly on drums with bands such as Guttermouth, This Is A Standoff, Bloody Beetroots) in Pesaro in September 2022, mixed and mastered by Simo Perini and Totonno Nevone @ Duff Studios.
Words by Simone Gabrielli:
We live in an age that treats emotions as a commodity, as if reactions to our experience were to be hidden because of the risk that they might flow into the irrational; when, instead, serious consideration should be given to the ability to be educated about them through reflection, understanding and the use of feelings capable of guiding us on a path that, in addition to the importance of listening, pays attention to ‘feeling.’
The matter of ‘time‘ plays a role of primary importance, then. Greek philosophy allows us to explore this topic in depth, splitting into two distinct consequent terms the way we think about time. With the term Chronòs, we describe the time that flows. Its quantitative nature was identified, which can be measured, which to this day imprisons our days, forces planning and punctuates a hectic and alienating daily routine.
It’s the time trapped in clocks and devices, a time that, from the moment it was codified, ceased to be available to man. Human beings fear it, chase it, and feel constrained between moments that never seem to pass and others that always last too little.
To take on significant value, then, seems to be to understand time as the second term advises us to do. Kairòs, the right moment and its qualitative nature, which we are able to experience because we are aware of the present, which allows a connection with what we feel. Kairos is (but this is my personal interpretation) the moment of awareness, the moment of pause after a headlong race: we recover our heartbeats, we stop to enjoy the view to understand what the road traveled up to that moment has left us. From this reflection, “Take Your Time,” our new single, was born.
Twenty years after the beginning of this exciting yet hectic experience, we wanted to stop and make that very time our own. We tried to understand what all these years have given us, how much music is still a part of our lives and the way we perceive the world.
The single takes shape with the precise idea of making people reflect on the passage of time, time as a place to inhabit rather than something to chase and measure. A point of view that without a retrospective stamp fails to understand the present by preventing any future projection. In a time when he is asked to function before he exists, the protagonist immerses himself in thinking about a path that has led him to recognize himself.
“Take Your Time” slows down the rhythms of a band that reached the 20-year mark, stops and looks at the road traveled, realizes what is left and wonders about future prospects. NH3 have never just written stories, however, so in the narrative of this single lies a denunciation of a present that chases “doing” without leaving room for “being.”
“Take Your Time” is a lyric that compels listening, a path that asks to come to terms with regrets and falls. It opens up questions and questions what arises from the relationship we build with mistakes and uncertainty. We are led to retrace and relive moments, constantly traveling into the past, trying to imagine the future (hence the reference to the DeLorean) of “Back to the Future” without ever dwelling too much on the importance of the now. It is a single whose lyrics and meaning are immersed in a new sound that thrives on Californian shades, with reggae, punk, funk and soul elements, a base that doesn’t let up and insists throughout the flow of the song and leaves behind the frenzy and din of a record, “Superhero,” that has seen us face the monsters of a lifetime.
One step at a time, taking time, gaining space, coming back to breathe in order to understand who you are now: this is what “Take Your Time” encapsulates, a cry, albeit a quiet one, that is being hurled at a society that is destroying the planet and its inhabitants without realizing the paradox into which it is plunging: self-destruction.
Catch NH3 at their upcoming XX YEARS TOUR at the following stops:
09.12.22 DE Köln, Sonic Ballroom
10.12.22 DE Kronach, Struwelpeters
27.01.23 DE Karlsruhe, Alte Hackerei
28.01.23 CH Bern, Blaues Pferd Festival
10.02.23 DE Wiesbaden, Kreativfabrik
11.02.23 DE Glachau, Cafe Taktlo
03.03.23 DE Hamburg, Hafenklang
04.03.23 DE Berlin, Clash
24.03.23 DE Hannover, Lux
25.03.23 DE Oberhausen, Druckluft
28.04.23 DE Fürth, Kopf & Kragen
29.04.23 DE Viersen, Rockshicht
