Wakefield, home of the Cribs and the Research, is not the sort of place you’d expect to be a breeding ground of pop stardom… then again, where is? Stupid statement. It’s just that Shake Shudder hail from there and… well you have to say something, don’t you?
Three song EPs, eh? Enough for a taste, not enough for a reasoned estimation. Well, my taste is this. From opener ‘Pound for Pound’ the jagged guitar and martial drums drag a furrow through your nerves, hastily filled by the plodding, apologist bass line. Then, to add to the trauma, Russ’s over-smoked voice starts screaming off key. It’s not the most pleasant of introductions… like being introduced to your daughter’s boyfriend and finding he isn’t house broken. There is however the ghost of a good tune here, but, stop me if I’m wrong, I’m sure Franz Ferdinand have done this one.
‘Numbers’ is a slight improvement, but it still sounds like a badly tuned radio, and that voice…
…is better when quiet. There. It may be the last song, but ‘Only When I’ manages a few bars of consistent pleasant indie pop before plunging into disparate static. ‘Course, that might be the idea in which case: good. But I don’t think it is. Rein it in boys; less is more. And fix that bloody radio. It’s setting off my migraine.
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