Hot off the vinyl presses comes Shag’s tasty new full length album, “Thursday Night Special”. Blasting at the seams with electric hooks, driving rhythms and soaring vocals, this is the album the Edmonton music scene has been leading to for years, decades even.
Lead singer Zack Kelly lyrically conjures a gutter scene of destitution as an introduction to the proceedings on the album’s 1st track as Shag vaults into it’s signature cacophony and never lets up. Thursday Night Special continually shudders the listener emotionally and musically from the inside out.
Jess Robinson on lead guitar is a bit of a throwback to the grunge and bubblegum aesthetic bands like Sonic Youth once got up to on their more palatable releases. On ‘Upgrader(ed)’ Robinson’s licks pull us through the “struggle” of “still living in this shit-hole”. There’s definitely an undertone of dreariness in Kelly’s lyrics but what he does to paint a cold landscape with words the band counters with their punchy, sometimes bright sound.
Listeners of Thursday Night Special will be hard pressed to pin Shag down to one idea or genre. Each new song frames a different thought process in each instrument sounds, even if just slightly. Shag are not limited by their chosen instruments like some other ‘garage rockers’ are. For some reason, garage rock is more known for its passion in playing as opposed to skill. Shag have both in spades. Drawing from all directions of rock n’ roll, Thursday Night Special could easily be found in the same record collections as the Hold Steady, R.E.M., My Morning Jacket or even Morrissey just for starters.