The Shills: OurStage Artist Of The Week

posted in: Artist Features • Features • Pop • Rock

If you’re looking for it, it’s actually not too hard to find a new band you really dig. Most often, those artists are doing something that resonates with you because of your established tastes. It sounds familiar, it feels comfortable, and maybe there’s even an aspect of the music that’s unique. Much more rare, though, is to come across an act doing something completely different than what you might otherwise find in your music collection and still be affected by it. Such is the case with The Shills, a band that seems to blend so many varied influences as to produce music that cannot be so easily pigeonholed. Fresh off a second win in our Indie Pop channel, they are our latest Artist of the Week.

As the band themselves describe, they take some of the best bits from “Queen to Queens of the Stone Age, Yes to Radiohead, Motown to Metal, Punk to Jazz,” and progress from there. You might be a punk who can’t stand prog, or a jazz snob with little patience for punk, but you might be surprised at how much you appreciate some of the subtleties of previously overlooked musical elements when they’re incorporated into something more broad. And in the end, it’s really about whether or not there are songs.

Case in point, their winning song “Honest Answers,” a soaring melody across a syncopated beat and alternately chugging and arpeggiated guitars. “Nectar Perfect” is indie rock with Top 40 radio-ready vocals which breaks into a classic rock chorus and an unexpected half-time bridge. Find me another band that makes you think simultaneously of Built To Spill and Heart (“Move A Mountain,” “Electric Proving Ground”).

It is no small thing to be able to think about music this way, never mind perform it with such precision and passion. Open your mind and enjoy the music of The Shills.

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