Woke up today and felt extremely charged and excited about doing some writing for the blog. Morning sleepiness, some coffee, my cat blocking half the screen and an extremely interesting band to top it all...small things make life fucking great.
"Shat Shorts" is a quintet hailing from Washington, DC, consisting of former members from quite a lot of past projects, including "Dawn Treader", "Mop Attack", "The Summer We Went West", "Bezout's Identity", "Hobis" and "Monument". The dudes got together in last April and by the following September they already recorded this six song tape. In the mail that Andrew from the band sent to me, he mentioned that they play hardcore/punk, but once I took a listen to their material I realized that it was so much more than just plain hc punk. My excitement about writing today was further increased once the tape ended, since there are all sorts of elements flying around in their music which really make "Shat Shorts" your atypical band.
"Amateur Hour" opens up first, comically starting with the whole band just playing some random (warming up) tunes. Drums get in line to get things serious, after which you are greeted with a deep, guitar screeching, evil melody, quite an eerie feel to it. After some time, drums go at it again and kinda separate the song into several repeated sections, a near start stop style if you please. By now you are are still in the so called hc/punk genre, but already drifting away from it, since now bass comes up front with a rather simple line which completely blew me away with how much it sounds great. Seconds later guitar comes above the bass, this repetitive melody going on for some time.
Ok, so I'll stop with the description here, hoping that you got my point. This is about half a song and as you can see there is so much going on. Not only are the melodies diverse, but the instruments sound vastly different from your standard hardcore. Call me crazy, but the bass has a sort of post punk tone to it, a bit distorted but quite solid at the same time. It really sounds great this way especially because it seems to both perfectly fit in with the rest of the band and to be extremely out of this world. The vocals are also raspy and you get a feeling like the singer is performing through a bunch of static, which exceptionally fits in with the overall chaos. Generally, the whole recording seems crunchy and raw, with a lot of crackles going on around in the air and it fits perfectly. My readers probably know how much I praise "clean" recordings, but this just blew my head from my shoulders, I instantly fell in love with this. One would think that this crunchiness would drag along some slow, sluggish tunes, but "Shat Shorts" just bursts with energy. Yes, they have some slower song sections, but there are also extremely fast and melodic parts which are just stunning.
The fact that I wrote this review in one breath, without turning back and after the initial listening gives quite a lot of praise to this band by itself. They really managed to impact hit me so fast and really left a mark in my head. There is really an interesting and unique experimental edge within their music and it grasps your full attention. I definitely recommend "Shat Shorts" to everyone, they are bound to attract your liking. If you are still uncertain whether to give them a try, you can read an interview with them which was done by "dcist" here or if you found my review retarded you can check out their one song being featured in a local city paper here. You can also get in touch and follow them on their tumblr page here. So, what are you waiting for? Go and just enjoy!
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