Labels: No Idea
Review by: MH
This is the latest offering from the rather prolific Shores with 8 new slow, miserable meandering songs and it’s very good. There is nothing drastically different to their previous output and that’s definitely a good thing. Slow songs with warm, low vocals and a clean, guitar sound. There are shades of Codeine throughout in the sound of the guitars, the lumbering slowness and the overriding, haunting sadness. These guys are as good as Codeine if you ask me and should be talked about in the same bracket as them.
The slowness is turned up (down?) to the maximum on this album – it’s 3 and a half minutes before the vocals start on the outstanding opener “Chardonnnay”. This one sets the tone for the rest of the album. It plods along but is fragile, sad and beautiful. I really like the lyrics throughout too. They are bleak and really stand up on their own when reading them from the insert. I love the way the guitars and drums get going and crash down in waves like at the end of “Hinges” and “Windswept” – so good. Last song “Chagrin” features female vocals from Britty Drake who is in both Procession and Pity Sex. Nice, bleak sounding lone guitar to close the album too.
It’s dark, it’s somber, it’s sad but warm at the same time, it’s as slow (‘mo!) as you like – it’s everything I expect and want from Shores. Great stuff again. Shores are in the 0.0000001% of bands who sustain the high standards they set themselves across numerous releases.