Shellshag - Rumors In Disguise

Shellshag

Rumors In Disguise
(Don Giovanni)
Rating: 3.6 of 5

I had the opportunity to see this band open for The Slits at the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh the spring before last. Touring with the material off of Destroy Me I’m Yours, the Brooklyn-based duo tore proper through their set of hooky pop-punk dressed with lurching feedback and kitschy deadbeat swagger. Shellshag, no doubt, is a gripping live act. The head-bobbing dance party that ensued brought old-heads, acolytes of post-punk and younger revivalists together with each repeated two-and-a-half minute sing-along.

Fresh off their recent consummation with Don Giovanni Records, Shellshag is ready to put their second album, Rumors In Disguise, out on new release shelves across the states. After exhausting themselves on sixteen straight dates last summer with burgeoning scenesters and labelmates, the Screaming Females, Johnny Shell and Jen Shag entered the studio to scribble down fifteen songs of mid-tempo minimalist punk.

The feel of the album is a little dragging, but turn up the volume and you get the fuzz-drone snottiness and DIY brandish in full effect. Johnny’s riffing comes straight out of Ramones academia with a good taste of late-80s American Underground to go with it. Jen plays the kit standing up with about as much tit for tat as needed to propel the songs onward. The two forces come together in such exemplary moments as the vocal interplay on “Means That Much” and the mucky goofiness of “Get Right”.

‘Can’t fix it with just one pill’, Jen proclaims over a J Mascis-sounding rhythm guitar on “1984”. With the exception of the poppy uplift of “Resilient Bastard”, the cuts that Jen carries steal the allure behind the record. Frenzied and maniacal titles like “Wake Up” and “Dirty Looks” stick to the basics and deliver with raw innovation. It surely helps to make up for a few of Johnny’s more lackluster contributions.

Rumors In Disguise is, both, the latest benchmark for progress in communicative punk rock and the blueprint for things to come from this brazen two-piece. Keep one ear to the ground.

Resilient Bastard - Shellshag

The review posted on ZapTown
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