No doubt, here and now is the ultimate Can-ned age of recycled rock, copycat and cloned musique, a literal briccolage of all things from a post-industrial age just now being truly understood and tempered. Well, Shock is partly a product of this pop culture hazmat environment, and are a fresh aire frolic into all things re-mastered, like a post-punk Serge Gainsbourg making jittery films for underground catwalks of nowhere youth. Although they erupted from Atlanta, they made their way, after being a bit lured and cured by TV on the Radio’s David Sitek, to Brooklyn’s now notorious maverick music haven, and have combined forces with other hipsters from …Trail of Dead, etc. In doing so, they echo Euro and neon decadence. Even the bland magazine Harp was “left gobsmacked by the trancelike, dubadelic vibe, equal parts postpunk and noir rock.” Sure there’s hints of Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Ladytron, and Stereolab, but they have an agile ability to weld these rather seamlessly until they feel organic and, well, rather irresistible. “How thick is my skin/I try to escape…” they squall on “Breath Again,” a dark, razory, draining romp through late 1970’s Siouxsie gestures. It’s hypnotizing, mannered, and convulsive, and even if it’s a trapdoor of style, it’s well worth falling deep. “Art of Noir” gets coated with French lyrics, feeling every bit as obtuse and remote as any catchy danse punk music can to a trailer park kid addicted to an equal love of David Lynch, Krautrock, and Mayan calendars, all the modern cosmology of a twisted-up life in moderne America.
Again, Shock’s main appeal is the total shaken and stirred sensibilities—a total commitment to making memorable and catchy music without sacrificing hidden layers of sonic prowess and reference. “New Threats” feels equally shimmering and frantic, all unsafe and pre-generated at the same time, releasing a whirlwind within a ghost gasp, an almost clumsy drummed catapulting splurge. The web site Evil Sponge has likened them to a combo of electroclash, Pylon, and even Romeo Void on an earlier single, which might peak up during tracks like the current “After Hrs,” with its sly knowing lyrics, coiled beats, and unfleshy but still pop delivery. “Some of us will find our way home,” they intone on “Death in Texas,” while the song mashes and clashes between Greek furies vocal craziness and echoey, girly plushness, all while the beat is stiff and manic, browbeaten and limber at the same time. Then, to add final flair to this project, extended late night post-cocktail remixes of “Howling Door” and “Art of Noir” highlight their knack for building complex, geometric soundscapes that invite hallucination, as if you were jetting down the Autobahn making it with a hieroglyphic girl whispering lines from Jean-Luc Godard films and sucking blue candy. This is for the inner Bladerunner belly dancers and the Diesel wearing troopers of the Beat Per Minute machine.
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