They claim it stands for No-one Ever Really Dies, which - when you consider the global ubiquity of their production incarnation - sounds not so much coolly Zen as a threat to plague studios everywhere until the end of time. The Neptunes, as every sentient being now knows are Pharrell Williams and Chad Hugo, the production team who’ve waved their magic studio wand for everyone from Kelis, Jay-Z and Usher to No Doubt, Britney and Justin T.
The Neptunes, however, are not NERD. For this, their “rock” project, Williams and Hugo work with vocalist Shay and in 2001 they released their debut album, "In Search Of…", with the band Spymob hired to deal with the instrumental business. It was regarded as something of a novelty – as might be expected of any record made outside an artist’s established milieu – and met with muted respect rather than critical accolades. It failed to set the charts alight.
For their follow-up, all production is naturally The Neptunes’ work, but Williams and Hugo have ditched Spymob in favour of playing all instruments themselves, leaving them “live” rather than programming them for the finished tracks. If only that made a real difference. Truth is, like its predecessor, the value of "Fly Or Die" is overwhelmingly as a curio, ie a rock-rooted album made by an R&B/hip hop production team. What kind of rock might these guys rate? Do they have a weird and challenging take on the genre? Have they hatched a thrilling new hybrid?
Well, NERD apparently rate the poor man’s Hendrix, Lenny Kravitz (guest guitarist on "Maybe") and those notorious, underground rock radicals Good Charlotte (whose Joel and Benji Madden lend their vocal talents to "Jump"). They do have a weird take on the genre, but only in the way that say, Coldplay would necessarily have a weird take on R&B; they’re operating outside of their creative comfort zone and the result is just as many spills as thrills. "Fly Or Die" is a hybrid but, like the funk-metal which dominates its first half, it’s neither a thrilling nor new one.
By far the strongest tracks are stacked in the album’s second half: the glossy, soaring "Breakout" suggests Outkast having just discovered both "Katy Lied" and "Tales From Topographic Oceans" and seeing no good reason why they shouldn’t combine the two; the killer "Drill Sergeant" makes like a theatrical production of "Combat Rock" starring Faith No More and directed by Adam F; and for "Thrasher", NERD have lifted the riff from Queens Of The Stone Age’s "No One Knows" and given it a good, Dre 3000-styled seeing to.
Elsewhere, there are echoes of Morricone, John Lennon, Barry White and Elton John, while the jazz fusion spirit of Steely Dan is never far away. Yes, it’s that genre-confused ker-azy. Flawlessly interesting is what we’ve come to expect from Williams and Hugo, but "Fly Or Die" is rather interestingly flawed.
