From their masterfully titled, anthemic “Shit Opus,” to their growling, distorted guitar, Shutups could be effectively described as a group of anti-establishment California indie punks with a vested interest in encouraging capitalism’s implosion. Leaving it there would also be a disservice to the deliberation, complexity, and artistry in their music.
Recording started in the summer of 2019, two months after releasing “Zen“. Our second session was in February 2020, a few weeks before lockdown began. We shelved the album and started working on “EP 5“. “EP 5″ boiled over into 2021’s “Six and Seven“. On occasion we’d hack away on “Vomit“, tracking and re-tracking, editing and re-editing, several songs getting reworked many times over and/or scrapped. It felt like the album we’d never finish. Mostly due to the positive feedback received from playing these songs live and sharing demos with friends & family, we finally pulled it together and finished it.
The first single “Endless Heaven”, a quiet/loud/quiet chugger offset by sticky finger-picked guitars, clave, timpani, falsetto vocals and strings. It’s a summer song, but for the more mundane moments of summer (sitting in hot cars, power outages, sunburns, days lost to the void). It’s about dissociating and returning mid sentence. Bud played the gong.
The groups’ new album holds true to the distinctive niches they carved out to begin with, from bedroom pandemic production to post-isolation DIY maximalism. “I can’t eat nearly as much as I want to vomit” presents a very human expression of reality in spite of what is, overwhelmingly, a bad time––serving us a sort of seething, technicolour alternative sound that’s both intimate, furious, and inarguably cool.
“I can’t eat nearly as much as I want to vomit”, out now via Kill Rock Stars.
Released October 21st, 2022
The Fat Angel Sings 