Shit and Shine
54 Synth-Brass, 38 Metal Guitar, 65 Cathedral
By Tristan Bath
8/10
There’s no other band working today for whom the words ‘post-everything’ ring quite as true as they do for Shit & Shine. They’ve traversed uncharted plains between noise rock, outright digital abstraction, and pop-like tropes, shifting from non-sequitur to non-sequitur, donning blue face makeup and rabbit masks, and yelling rambled nonsense over drum rhythms repeated for half an hour at a time before breaking into haphazardly assembled concrete pop. They’re utterly unlike anything else, but only by being sort of like everything else all at once. I was lucky enough to be in the small crowd observing Shit & Shine’s gig in a subterranean cave at Elevate Festival in Graz, Austria last October. Craig Clouse - the sole consistent member in the ever-shifting lineup - was joined on stage by a drummer and vocalist to unleash seemingly random yelps and guitar noise into auto tuning pedals, all over the top of a four-to-the-floor beat for some 25 minutes. The crowd went from excited to confused to excited, to almost angry… But that’s just how this band works: always expect the unexpected from Shit & Shine. On that note, we move on to the latest full album from Clouse and co, put out by the always reliable Rocket Recordings (home to Goat amongst others). The catchily titled 54-Synth-Brass 38 Metal Guitar 65 Cathedral.
Locked groove rock ‘n roll has become the default setting for underground guitar bands of late. Ever since kids started Googling ‘Neu!’ and ‘krautrock’, metronomic repetitious rhythm has become almost omnipresent…
Read the full review here: Drowned in Sound
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