Shoppers – Silver Year LP (Drugged Conscience/Feeble Minds)
RECOMMENDED
I hope I get this right, because to not give Silver Year the praise it deserves would cheat us all. It’s the kind of record that brings the notions of a few decades’ worth of music back to square one, pushing an underheard message of strength and the release of rage from singer Meredith Graves, through a carcrash of blistered noise crumbling apart atop a mile-long bed of hot coals. She is easily one of the most gifted lyricists I’ve read in I can’t remember how long, enunciating tales of the struggle to exist in a world currently in the process of its most dominant groups of humans losing power, and trying to assert themselves wherever they can. Themes of alcoholism, sexual assault, and social dynamics are balanced with words of strength and reinvention over bristly, churning guitar riffs, a tool-and-die style rhythm section that pushes things along at whatever speed is asked of it, and production that sounds like 100 transistor radios chained under the hood of an American muscle car revving into fourth gear. Don’t worry, there’s like 49 great riffs buried in that atmosphere, and none of them are wasted. It’s taken me a few listens just to get to the bottom of this sound, which is incredibly exciting in and of itself, but I gave in to realizing that everything about this record and band is exciting, and reminds me of why I got into this kind of music in the first place. They play with so few rules but create so much energy and possibility within that space that they could have just as easily written a new page in punk rock. (http://feebleminds.bigcartel.com)
(Doug Mosurock)
THANK YOU DOUG! & still-single
