Shores + Charles the Osprey - Ritual

In 2011 I stumbled across the band Shores playing a pre-Fest show in Gainesville on the night before Fest kicked off properly. They were playing in 1982 with Caves and Pure Graft, two British bands we knew well. Also on the bill were Charles the Osprey and Beast of No Nation. It was a fun night and a good introduction to how the rest of Fest was going to play out - drinking cheap PBRs in a sweaty venue listening to punk-rock. I really enjoyed Shores - they took more influence from bands like Low than they did from punk-rock bands and sat in a very interesting and largely unique position between punk and slowcore. It worked for me; afterwards I went to the merch table and picked up both of their albums at the time, Coup de Grace and To Volstead (for a bargain $15. I was also given a free compilation cd which introduced me to Bars of Gold, which in turn introduced me to Bear vs Shark. It was a pretty good free cd).

I enjoyed seeing Charles the Osprey that night, but in a more casual way. My memory is of them basically being an instrumental math-rock band, which is in no way a bad thing - they were certainly fun to watch - but it's just not something I'm hugely into. Sarah, however, is a big instrumental math-rock fan, so she picked up the Charles the Osprey record afterwards.

About a year later, I discovered the Different Kitchen distro here in the UK, which stocked a lot of No Idea records. I'd been directed to it after buying a Cutman record at All Ages that turned out to have the wrong 7" in the sleeve (Cutman being another Gainesville band we discovered on the first day of actual Fest) - they didn't have the right one, but suggested the distro as a place to find it instead. They had a huge selection of stuff, and I was particularly pleased to see that not only had Shores released another album, Leavening, but there was also a 7" with a Nirvana cover and a split with Charles the Osprey. Sarah had told me the CTO LP she got was pretty good, so I figured the split was worth getting too.

The split is actually much more interesting than you might normally expect - each band offer one new song, one cover of a song by the other band (although, reinterpretation might be a better word) and one song where they swap members to create two new bands. Both bands are technically two-pieces, although Shores have additional live musicians, so the third song on each side is then half-Shores, half-CTO. It's a level of collaboration you don't see in split records as much as you'd like to.

Both sides sound distinctly like the bands listed on the labels, despite the different types of song included. Shores' original Tipper is a perfect example of their style of music, and their cover of CTO's Kids sounds like it could easily have been a Shores song - the addition of vocals obviously being a major factor, the mathy guitars still present, but much less prominent. The first half-and-half song is credited to a band called Beaches and is essentially a step further along the same trajectory as the last two songs - distinctly Shores-esque (mostly due to the vocals again), but with a much more mathy edge and unusual instrumentation.

On the other side, CTO's Sculptor is exactly how I remember them from that night in Florida. Their take on Roux, one of the highlights of Shores' first album, is fascinating - the guitars taking over where the vocals would be. If I play it without paying much attention to what song I'm on, I'm aware of it sounding familiar before I realise why. The second collaboration goes by the name Howard the Duck and, fittingly, is more mathy but with much darker guitars, which works pretty well for me.

All in all, a very interesting record and one I'm glad I picked up.

Format: 12", half-a4 insert
Tracks: 6
Cost: £9 new
Bought: Different Kitchen distro
When: 14/11/12
Colour: Grey mix
Etching: Side A: "All song, no solo" Side B: "All solo, no song"
mp3s: Download code

Shores - To Volstead

I don't have a lot to say about this record, sorry. I wrote (at length) about how I got into Shores on this blog post about their debut Coup de Grace. I bought both records at the same time after seeing the band (the conversation with the merch guy went like this - Me: "Which Shores album should I get?", Him: "You can have both for $15") so there's not much to say about that either.

My lack of anything interesting to say isn't a reflection of how much I like the album. It's good. So is their third, which I picked up more recently. If I'm craving some Shores I can put on any of their albums and get fairly equal enjoyment from them all. I played Coup de Grace a lot more at first, but that was intentional; I'd come back from Florida with a lot of records and knew I'd never get into them all properly if I didn't spread out the first listens. Humoring and Beau Monde are both stand-out songs here.

The LP came with a download code and, amusingly, the genre is listed as "Bummercore". However, listen to the start of Faith Hill and you'll be tempted to agree ("I am Hamlet, and everyone dies"). Still, there's their usual slow-build-up / slow-but-heavy-outro going on in a lot of the songs and it's a winning combination. I definitely enjoyed them more live than on record, but I'd still recommend all three of their albums.

Format: 12", insert
Tracks: 11
Cost: £4.62 new
Bought: Fest
When: 27/10/11
Colour: Black
Etching: Side A: "Future bread" Side B: "Pastry mistakes"
mp3s: Download code

Shores - Little Something

I picked up this 7" when buying the new Shores LP from the Different Kitchen distro. I was drawn in by the Nirvana cover and added it to the handful of records I was ordering. The A-side, Little One, is a cover of a song by Twelve Hour Turn, who I know nothing about except that they're also on No Idea Records.

I'm no huge Nirvana fan, but they wrote some pretty decent songs, and I always enjoyed Something in the Way for how slow and stripped back it sounded. It then seems natural that Shores would cover this particular Nirvana song and the gentle build-up fits their style nicely. It's certainly a nice little record.


Format: 7"
Tracks: 2
Cost: £3.85 new
Bought: Different Kitchen distro
When: 14/11/12
Colour: Black
Etching: Side 1: "Hi John..." Side 2: "Did I get you again?"
mp3s: Download code

Shores - Coup de Grace

One evening last year in The Peel in Kingston, the thought of going to Fest went from being a crazy idea to being an actual plan. I'd been to a gig (I forget who) with a friend and mentioned how awesome the line-up looked. We looked on her iPhone and she agreed it was pretty incredible. We figured we could get cheap-ish flights, go for two weeks, see some sights before, go to Fest, check out some more sights and go home. Turns out Florida doesn't have a great deal of sights, so potential culture was changed for beaches and rollercoasters. Throw a weekend of punk into the mix and you've got a fun, albeit non-standard, holiday.

Shores were one of the first bands we saw at Fest. We decided to head up to Gainesville on the Thursday to check out one of the Pre-Fest shows and opted for the one in 1982 (a very cool bar filled with old Nintendos and cheap beer, although it turned out everywhere had cheap beer). I think Caves were the main draw, a band we've seen plenty of times, but were excited to see again in a foreign country. Anyway, the fourth band that night were Shores and I thought they were ace. They seemed different to the other bands we'd seen, but somehow still very much a punk band. On the surface the fact they're on No Idea seems odd, but at the same time totally right. A lot of the songs started as slow, brooding numbers but then would gradually explode into a crazed, organised mess of guitars and drums. I was impressed.

Often at gigs I want to buy a record but I'm never sure which album to go for, especially when its a band I know nothing about. Merch guys often play an under-appreciated role here in convincing me which record to go for. After Shores played I had a chat with the merch guy who offered me both of their LPs for $15, which at the time was still way cheaper than buying one record at home, and he had a sale. Of course being half way round the world and without a turntable it was a while before I got to listen to them. I played Coup de Grace before To Volstead and it became my favourite of the two (not that there's anything wrong with To Volstead, more on that record another time). The first track on side 2 Engage, Pall is possibly my highlight and a perfect example of a song that explodes and keeps going. The whole album feels sparse, but never like anything is missing. Even lyrically they barely form a full sentence. I often see the band compared to Low, and I can see where they're coming from. However (and with the exception of the last album), I sometimes feel like Low's songs don't really go anywhere; like they're just build-up for something that doesn't happen. That's not the case with Shores - on Coup de Grace you're rewarded every time. Roux and the seven-minute Canned Heat are also worthy of particular mention.

So yeah, more on Shores another time when I write about To Volstead, but I fully recommend checking them out.

Format: 12", half-a4 inner
Tracks: 8
Cost: £4.62 new
Bought: Fest
When: 27/10/11
Colour: Brown
Etching: Side A:"Home wrecker? Hanger? Shores? Hmmm..." Side B:"Burittos"
mp3s: download