INSIGNIFICANT WHIP CANT WHIP

Description

The healing hand and the surgeon’s scalpel are inextricably linked in Shepherds’ new album, ‘Insignificant Whip’. The art-rock masterpiece encompasses the band’s vulnerable wisdom in soaring melodies that burn with intimacy and fragility. Vocalists/lyricists Jonathan Merenivitch and Adrian Benedykt Switon tackle everything from toxic masculinity to catholic guilt, Youtube comments to Tupac Shakur. Since their 2011 Holy Stain EP, the band has received praise for their rigorous analyses of societal ills and the ensuing tensions upon body and mind, yet even the skeletal no-wave that defined their earliest sound was bound up with, in the broadest sense of the word, soul. The band’s ability to grapple with their deepest uncertainties and self-doubt transcends mere catharsis; it illuminates deeper questions of existence and identity, and situates them within a context of systemic oppression, discrimination, and isolation.The minimalism that guided Shepherds’ earlier work has evolved into a compositional strength thanks to founding bassist Peter Cauthorn, who helped flesh out the LP’s identity as a primary contributor to the album’s instrumental textures. Vocalist and drummer Switon also played a central role in the recording process lending his songwriting and vocal talents to the album’s pensive color, while new additions Ryan York (drums), May Tabol (guitar, keys), and Vinny Restivo (bass) round out the band. Moments on Insignificant Whip recall everything from Felt to Josef K, but Shepherds possess a strong capacity to write sly, modern post-punk rather than simply providing homage to a particular era of underground music. Martial rhythms still echo the proletarian fever of their 2015 LP ‘Exit Youth’, but the lyrics are now delivered over pulsing saxophone melodies and deliberative chords, making them all the more haunting through the production of Drew Vandenberg (Toro Y Moi, Mothers, Of Montreal).Throughout ‘Insignificant Whip’, Shepherds’ introspective nature is amplified by a holistic understanding of what it means to be human. Adult anxieties, deferred adolescent desires, and the overwhelming weight of evil in the world are forged into vulnerable psalms. It is precisely in these tear-stained moments that the album transcends looming dread as Shepherds invites the listener into a community that tempers surrounding darkness and pushes back against eagerness with resolute empathy.