The Shelters<\/i><\/a>, an album whose shadowy after-midnight-on-the-boulevard grit was brightened considerably by Byrds aficionado Petty\u2019s sunnier melodic sensibilities, heard especially on ringing, driving single \u201cRebel Heart.\u201d<\/p>\nAnd then in October 2017, the band\u2019s mentor, the rock and roll icon Simpson and Jove called \u201cTommy,\u201d died.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s taken a full and no doubt very difficult two years for the Shelters to re-emerge with sophomore album Jupiter Sidecar<\/i>. Absent Petty\u2019s innate gift for the jangle, these tunes manifest a darker, glammier Sunset Strip rock club persona; there\u2019s less Kinks and more T.Rex, a seedy heaviness that stands in sharp contrast to the whimsical cover art. The song titles alone \u2013 \u201cTangled Up,\u201d \u201cStrange,\u201d \u201cBad Dreams,\u201d \u201cGirl Under Fire,\u201d \u201cNothing\u2019s Safe Tomorrow,\u201d \u201cEnd Of The Fun,\u201d \u201cCan\u2019t Go Home\u201d \u2013 tell a story in terms of the album\u2019s mood. The album\u2019s often dreamy, atmospheric lyrics are ribboned through with alienation.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re Different\u201d kicks things off with a hard-driving tune about reaching for connection only to find your partner has moved on, decorated with synth flair that reminds of Brendan Benson (and in fact co-producer Joe Chiccarelli has worked with the Raconteurs, along with Young The Giant, The Shins, and The Strokes). What feels like it\u2019s missing is the laconic smirk that Petty applied to everything he did, that easy confidence; by contrast, this iteration of the Shelters is all about anxiety and dislocation.<\/p>\n
Highlights from there include the punchy glam-rocker \u201cTangled Up,\u201d the grittier stomp of the rather Black Keys-ish \u201cDown The Line,\u201d well-crafted acoustic folk-rock interlude \u201cKimberley\u201d and its heavier successor \u201cBad Dreams.\u201d In each case Jove and Simpson take lead vocals on their own compositions while singing backgrounds for each other, but they\u2019re so complementary in phrasing and approach that you have to pay attention to tell their voices apart. <\/p>\n
With that said, in places it feels like the Shelters and Chiccarelli might be trying too hard. Both \u201cStrange\u201d\u2014a song which dates from the first album\u2019s sessions\u2014and \u201cHourglass\u201d take a kitchen-sink approach to arrangement, layering on instrument after instrument to deliver a density of sound that can feel a bit labored and that one suspects Petty might have encouraged them to prune back. With \u201cNothing\u2019s Safe Tomorrow\u201d the issue is the combination of aggressively cheesy synth tones and overly filtered-and-processed vocals; I know it\u2019s what the cool kids are doing, but clearly I\u2019m not one of them.<\/p>\n
What it comes down to for this non-cool non-kid is, track by track, does the overall vibe work? On \u201cEnd Of The Fun,\u201d it does, a loose and playful rave-up with farfisa organ adding to the atmosphere. It is, ironically enough, the most fun tune here, though closer \u201cCan\u2019t Go Home\u201d offers it some competition as Simpson and Jove\u2019s guitars grind and purr. If only they\u2019d left the vocals raw instead of tarting them up with filters.<\/p>\n
Coming off at times like a dive-bar Oasis going full glam, the Shelters ramp up the density and complexity of their sound on Jupiter Sidecar<\/i>. Putting further distance between themselves and their audience certainly mirrors this album\u2019s disaffected attitude, but it also makes it harder to find your way inside these songs. If your thing is dirty\/greasy guitar licks layered on sizzling, shearing synths layered on heavily processed vocals, then this glamfest may well feel like small-n nirvana. For this listener, the production razzle-dazzle too often feels like a distraction from the songs themselves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":33915,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[9851],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-45742","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-the-shelters","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45742"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45742\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51951,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45742\/revisions\/51951"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45742"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=45742"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=45742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}