Upchuck – I’m Nice Now: Album Review

Live4ever 3 October, 2025

Artwork for the Upchuck album I'm Nice Now

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Moshers have to wait their turn in this fierce and primal mix, but both Fried and the breakneck hardcore of Kin are stagedive ready, an aspect of this community Upchuck haven’t forgotten.

You don’t start writing about music to talk about vomiting, but you can’t deny the times might call for it.

Not just general queasiness about the descent of once noble institutions into patriarchy, but also thinking by extension that you may be able to excise this poison from your body by strength of will.

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Upchuck are a five piece from Atlanta, fronted by woman of colour KT, who have at their centre a belief that people should not have to swallow bullshit and by refusing it violently – but not necessarily with violence – this rejection is an act of rebellion in of itself.

Formed in the nightmarish middle of the first Trump administration, the quintet – KT, drummer Chris Salado, guitarists Mikey Durham and Hoff, plus bassist Ausar Ward – have released two albums to date, their 2022 debut Sense Yourself followed the next year with Bite The Hand That Feeds.

Evolving from their initially combative punk phrasings, the latter earned them support slots with Faye Webster and Amyl & The Sniffers, and renowned producer Ty Seagal has signed up again for this third instalment.

Recorded at Sonic Ranch Studio – a residential facility in the Texas desert on the border of the Rio Grande – the setting felt for Upchuck felt like, ‘a fucked-up summer camp kind of vibe where you’re on the edge of your seat’, Hoff says.

With the isolation and freedom they were able to be outside of things, looking back in at a societal malaise which shows no sign of healing itself. The results are I’m Nice Now.

The title partially reflects the mental exhaustion of being boxed in to a constant state of anger, as opener Tired articulates.

Over a shattered, Black Flag style scuzzy mendaciousness, KT wonders how much further everyone on the right side of history will have to travel: “And I’m Tired of Darker News/and I’ve Tried warnin’ you/It feels right scarin’ you.”

It’s also a record shaped by personal trauma, her sister passing during its recording. The nature of the loss, rather than the thing itself, is addressed on Forgotten Token which musically bears the closest resemblance to the Stooges-like garage rock of which they have become determined to mine.

The song deals with the event’s effects as much as its causes, an unorthodox requiem that reflects sorrow from oblique angles.

Sifting through what’s real (or more accurately what’s truly important) is explored on Plastic, a duet with Salado which sees him in his native Spanish declaring, ‘algo me hace falta’ (‘something is missing’), whilst KT in turn sees the key is to, ‘know classics – know truths – know reason – know you’.

Salado grew up performing cumbia music, and on tracks like Un Momento and Homenaje, is proud to give Upchuck’s personality a bilingual stance, one made in acknowledgement of Latinos as trailblazers when it came to being abused by the American system.

Moshers have to wait their turn in this fierce and primal mix, but both Fried and the breakneck hardcore of Kin (“We love chaos/And we love trouble) are stagedive ready, an aspect of this community not forgotten and duly represented.

It used to be the accepted wisdom: that everybody counts, or no-one does. Now, perversely nobody it seems feels everyone counts.

Upchuck have distilled, negated the rage they feel at what’s around them, and on I’m Nice Now have brewed up a vital antidote to our punch-drunk existence.

You may feel sick for a time, but then it all comes out and you’ll feel better.

Andy Peterson

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Tags:andy peterson, Upchuck