Shivery Shakes Return With “No Return”

The boys are back in town! Shivery Shakes announced their upcoming LP, Weird Weather, a few weeks back, but today, they’ve finally shared a track for our listening pleasure. This hometown four piece has been wowing us with their weirdo brand of surf pop tunes for a while, releasing their debut LP Three Waves & A Shake way back in 2014. Since then they’ve been quiet, but begin their triumphant return, ironically, with “No Return.” Impossibly tight knit beachy guitar riffs crash and collide with shimmery percussion, grounding bass lines and Will Glosup’s fuzzy vocals. The result is a track that’s perfect for the summer; listening to this song, you feel the need to get in your car, roll down the windows, pull on your shades and start driving to the beach or any body of water.

Weird Weather will be out sometime late September on our very own ATH Records. Word on the street is that this will be the pop album of the year. Take a listen to the perfect summer jam below and get stoked.

https://youtu.be/eiCazi60eTA

Take a Break With Some New Music Videos

Ok, so you’re still under the delusion that you’re going to get anything done at work today, but how much longer is that going to last? It’s Halloween! Take a break from whatever it is you’re still working at and take a look at two new music videos from local(ish) acts that will brighten your day and give you something to jam to while you start to get spooky.

First up are locals Shivery Shakes with their hilarious and cross-dressing abundant video for “Hold On” off their killer album Three Waves & A Shake. Just when you thought that song couldn’t get any better, the band gives it a visual component you don’t want to miss. [youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvYDUmi9yrI[/youtube]

Next up is where the (ish) comes from in local(ish): Little Cinema. While the band divides their time between Brooklyn and Austin, we can still claim them a little as our own. In this music video for “Birdwatchers of the World, Unite!” a track off their debut album, Adventure, things get a little birdy.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RvPLbNL2B_E&feature=youtu.be[/youtube]

Shivery Shakes – Three Waves & A Shake

shivsRating: ★★★★☆

Shivery Shakes are a local outfit consisting of the mergence of two past bands: The Bubbles and International Waters. These four gentlemen released a self titled EP back in 2012 and have been making waves through their live act all over town in which they’ve showed off their fuzzy lo-fi sunshine garage pop. This debut, Three Waves & A Shake, is their first attempt at a full-length release, and its combination of witty lyrics buried under the sheen of shimmery guitars will have you shaking it all day long.

“Recurring Dreams” may be your first introduction to this band, but it’s definitely not a bad place to start your love affair. Immediately, you get a bit of wandering guitar that sounds like it’s waking up as you ease into their sound. Following is some gentle whistling that screams easy-going and then the hazy vocals chime into the mix; they’ve got this slight echo/reverb to them that makes them feel far away and yet right next to you while they engage you in the narrative of the song. Meanwhile, the guitars are wide-awake, and so is the track, but it keeps pulling you further in. Two-thirds of the way through, you get this little break down where the vocals kick out and the band gets to simmer their way back to a boil, layering the instrumentation upon itself again before they launch into final chorus. This an excellent beginning to the record, one which should not only have you hooked, but swooning.

What’s special about this bouncy record is that this group avoids the phenomenon of redundancy that often overtakes albums, such as this, that fall into the genre of fuzzy jangle rock. Until its close, Shivery Shakes keep it fresh and crispy, but not overdone. Take “Strange Houses,” the eighth track on the record, to be an example of the band reinventing their sound to keep you interested. Here, you can hear the Surfer Blood-esque crashing waves of guitars that melt into one riff after another. While this starts as a mellow tune, soon we unearth this uneasy feeling with the band. The song asks, “at the moment I lose it, how will I tell?” prompting a shift from the winding sunset riffs to cutting tangy guitar for a moment of nervous instrumentation before a return to the chill vibes of earlier. It’s the little details like this that make each song stand apart from the other and make you want to spin this record from start to finish.

This album is brimming with sunny jangly pop/rock that makes you want to put on your sunglasses and take a drive with the windows down, seizing full advantage of the lack of fall weather that Austin is benefitting from these days. Hell, wherever you are, put on Three Waves & A Shake and your sunglasses and have a blast dancing with this record and Shivery Shakes. You won’t be sorry you did: music-scout’s honor.