INSIGNIFICANT WHIP CANT WHIP

Description

The healing hand and the surgeon’s scalpel are closely linked on 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, as well as Youtube comments and Tupac Shakur. Since their 2011 EP Holy Stain, the band has earned praise for its rigorous examinations of social ills and the resulting tensions on body and mind, but even the skeletal no-wave that defined their early sound was tied, in the broadest sense of the word, to soul. The band’s ability to confront its uncertainties and deepest doubts goes beyond simple catharsis; it sheds light on deeper questions of existence and identity, and places them in a context of systemic oppression, discrimination, and isolation. The minimalism that guided Shepherds’ earlier work has evolved into composition thanks to founding bassist Peter Cauthorn, who helped give the LP’s identity shape as a key contributor to the album’s instrumental textures. Singer and drummer Switon also played a central role in the recording process by bringing his songwriting and vocal talents to the album’s pensive color, while the new additions of Ryan York (drums), May Tabol (guitar, keyboards) and Vinny Restivo (bass) complete the band. Moments on Insignificant Whip recall everything from Felt to Josef K, but Shepherds have a great ability to write sly modern post-punk rather than simply pay homage to a particular era of underground music. The martial rhythms still echo the proletarian fever of their 2015 LP Exit Youth, but the lyrics are now delivered over thrilling saxophone melodies and deliberative chords, making them even more haunting thanks to the production of Drew Vandenberg (Toro Y Moi, Mothers, De Montréal). Throughout Insignificant Whip, Shepherds’ introspective nature is amplified by a holistic understanding of what it means to be human. The anxieties of adulthood, deferred teenage desires, and the crushing weight of evil in the world are forged into vulnerable psalms. It is precisely in these tear-stained moments that the album rises above growing unease as Shepherds invite the listener into a community that tempers the surrounding darkness and pushes back against haste with steadfast empathy.