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Review: 'SHUT-UPS, THE'
'Just Another Generation'   

-  Label: 'Stuff Records'
-  Genre: 'Indie' -  Release Date: '13th April 2018'-  Catalogue No: 'STFU-002'

Our Rating:
The Shut-Ups are back with their latest album. It took a mere 7 years to record and 2 years to release this sprawling epic of an album - or more accurately 11 songs in exactly 30 minutes. Are they named after The Parkinsons' legendary rallying cry of a song (Too Many Shut-Ups) or was that a complaint about the amount of records this lot's first four albums shifted? I'll leave it to the listener to figure that one out.

The album starts with the rather urgent We're Gonna Waste Your Time: a good, short, sharp blast of Power pop that really doesn't waste any time getting to the point or blasting through the room even if the counting section is a bit odd - like they are playing hide and seek or trying to rework Hanoi Rocks' High School. Either way, it's still pretty infectious.

Don't Get Me Started has really got Don Condescending all concerned about all sorts of stuff such as making perfect short power pop songs like this one that sounds like The Restless Hearts meets Teenage Fanclub via The Posies. But if I carry on like this he really will get started.

Just Another Generation sees them stuffing daisies up the butts of a new generation that thinks it's better than any before it like we all did at similar times in our lives. Yes, it's speedy and like when the commentator comes in like they are trying to do an ironic take on the commentator on The Streak, only this features less nudity as the current snowflake generation seem far less likely to streak than the 70's boomers.

This Band Is Gonna Break Up is like the band in question is hurtling towards a cliff edge as fast as the Ford Econoline will take them over it. The keyboards seem to rule the sound and the drummer seems to have already decided to play a different song to the rest of the band as they fracture in under 2 minutes.

We Are Remaindermen sounds like the title of some sort of futuristic film and has enough of a dystopian psychedelicized power pop sound to try and create that other world of the Remaindermen and the fact all their clothes books and items have a punch hole in them.

Metronome has a, well, metronomic beat as Don Condescending claims to be the metronome which could be a cool boast sexually with the right partner but this doesn't sound like a come on. It's more like a power pop blast with an odd lyrical steal from The Skids as he has a go at the rest of the band for not rehearsing enough.

Castration Anxiety is about just that and as they claim it almost never happens. I know of two kids I grew up with who lost a ball each - neither of them was fully castrated, so the chorus of "do it do it do it" is urging a very unusual act and they don't even name the person they think deserves to be castrated.

Two Minutes doesn't even last that long. It's a short sharp blast of a song. Why Are We Gonna Die? asks the obvious and the obscure questions to go with the statement over weirdly fractured sounds that I can't quite put a finger on. However, it's a cool song, no matter how many snatches of other things are thrown into the mix.

They Know all sorts of things like how many of you will go and buy this album the more the merrier as this is the albums slowest and longest song. Yes it's all of three minutes 46 seconds long, complete with some nice harmonies and lyrics that take a little issue with a famous Canadian's lyrics as this song will sound great everywhere and nowhere. It has a quite dreamy feel to it.

The album closes with Et Tu,Tomorrow. I don't know what happened to Brutus but this has a nicely snarky feel to the vocals and a cool new wave power pop feel as yet again they sing about the band breaking up. Now, what would Jason Nesmith the guitarist do other than go and play in all the other bands he's already in? Discuss.

This is a pretty cool album that you can find out more about at: The Shuts Ups at CD Baby.

The Shut-Ups Bandcamp page
  author: simonovitch

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SHUT-UPS, THE - Just Another Generation