Like a ball ricocheting endlessly within the confines of a cold hard room—such is the frenetic dance of life as Names Without Numbers lays it bare in their latest single, aptly titled “Ping Pong Ball in a Concrete Room.” Oh, how swiftly the hours seem to flee us, as if carried on wings too swift for mortals to chase, and yet, here we are, breathless and bound, running after the cart with hands half-full, lives half-lived, and always just short of time.
It is this, the endless race, that vocalist and guitarist Ryan Cruickshank so deftly captures in that piercing refrain: “Short on time / Steady grind / Here then gone / Just hold on.” We are all tied, are we not, to the conveyor belt of life? Bound to its relentless churning, as days melt into nights, and nights into days, until one feels, as the song confesses, “everywhere at once,” yet wholly nowhere at all. But even in that tumult, the song asks us—nay, implores us—to hold on. And hold on we must, for in this anthem, there is something achingly beautiful about the chaos, the hurriedness that never quite releases its grip.
Produced by Joshua Barber, a name already wrapped in the legacy of thunderous sounds—those who know Norma Jean and The Devil Wears Prada will understand—”Ping Pong Ball in a Concrete Room” hurtles forward with all the urgency of a life out of breath, but still pulsing with vitality. Each chord, each driving note, is like a heart pounding against the ribcage of time itself. There’s something of Jimmy Eat World in its exuberance, an echo of Anberlin in its grit, but Names Without Numbers has always walked its own path, merging the high-flying energy of emo-punk with the seasoned storytelling of the likes of Springsteen and Petty.
Ah, but what is it in the air of Omaha that gives rise to such bands, bands with hearts as restless as the Midwest wind? Names Without Numbers, a quartet whose roots lie deep in the soil of friendship and the early chords of pop-punk, has grown into something greater, something grittier, and undeniably more raw. And yet, through it all, they have retained the spark of their youth—the wild, unrelenting joy of being alive, even in the face of a life that never slows.
The song itself, a vibrant blend of guitar-driven indie-pop, shakes you awake, makes you remember the weight of each second slipping through your fingers. And yet, paradoxically, it feels good—so good. There is catharsis in the clash of steel strings, a release in the way Cruickshank and Owens’ guitars sing against the concrete walls that would confine them. Joel Schlegelmilch’s bass thrums beneath it all like the heartbeat of the restless, while Nick Evans on drums becomes the pulse of time itself—steady, unyielding, and always driving forward.
As we, too, chase our own ping pong balls in rooms of our making, let us remember the gift of the song: that in our steady grind, we are not alone.
Garth Thomas