dbl LP
this week marks the 40th anniversary of Hex Enduction Hour, though it's not exactly a particularly great time if you love The Fall. No new word from God in four years, and every time you turn on the radio there appears to have emerged a new mob who sound just like The Fall if only Mark E Smith were never in the band. Bleak. The accelerated collapse of western civilisation since 2018 can be no mere coincidence... Praise be, then, for a band like The Shifters, who admittedly do sound quite a lot like The Fall (specifically, mostly, Grotesque-era), but crucially understand it's the spirit and the smarts what matters most. Open Vault is two discs of rare, unreleased and demo recordings, though it's hard to imagine there's many Shifters songs that don't fit that description. This is a compliment. Odd/off kilter melodies underscored by witty observations, sometimes possibly in-jokes, sometimes potentially absurdist insight, songs that start and stop on a whim, burdened by the threat of implosion but never fully submit to collapse. Aussies as they are, they remind of those other outsider charmers, Big Supermarket, smart, funny, aspirationally unambitious in execution, entirely art-driven in approach. We love to see it, though rarely do we this well. Besides the point, perhaps, but i've also found myself particularly enamoured with the shade of blue used for the inner sleeves. Details details details, another vital aspect shared with our sainted ones...
