SHITTY PERSON
“JUDGEMENT”
Album Review by Dark Juan

7/10

Shitty Person are:

Benjamin Thomas-Kennedy
Daniel LaRochelle
Nicole Thomas-Kennedy
Arran McInnis
Dave Abramson
Milky Burgess
Rabia Shaheen Qazi
S. Surface
Natasha El-Sergany
Sam Yoder
Skerik

Hawkwind at their most trippy during a prolonged tantric sex session with Swans. Psychedelic shoegaze misery. Best experienced as I am experiencing it currently with some fine Belgian biere d’abbaye or some other party treats I’ll leave to your discretion. I know I normally talk bollocks for the first two paragraphs of any review but I am finding this American act curiously compelling. I can also hear a little bit of How To Measure A Planet? Era The Gathering in there too. Very interesting. I never used to like this sort of thing. As a younger hellpriest I was all about speed, power and violence. It’s only as I have got older and learned to appreciate more esoteric forms of music (Whitehouse and power electronics? Madness on record, mate) that I have come to understand that power comes in many forms. Shitty Person (shitty name for a band, incidentally!) are undeniably powerful in their own special way….

As I listen further to this very weird record I find other influences creeping in – Southern Gothic pioneers July Talk spring to mind with the juxtaposition of sweet female vocal and gruff male. I also detect a mogadon slow Pixies vibe on some of the songs. Think of a lightweight, fuzz phazer drenched My Dying Bride with more of a fixation on romance for an idea of tempo and mood.

The question is; can it be described as metal? I’m not sure as there doesn’t appear to be any particular genre it fits comfortably into within the metal world. But it has electric guitars and the musical arrangements are very rock and roll… I suppose it just scrapes in there, seeing as over the years everything from Van Halen and Robert Plant solo albums to Guns N Roses and Poison have been classed as metal by some geezer or gal. Compelling isn’t the word for my listening experience here… I’m fascinated.

As the record progresses I am drawn more and more to my original comparison with Swans. The male vocalist sounds increasingly like Michael Gira the more songs I hear. However, Shitty Person (still hate their name!) don’t follow the industrial leanings that Swans do. This also is NOT a record you can dance to. You might sway gently or do the goth wavy hands dance thing very slowly but that’s it. This is an album of emotion and subtle power. There is no way I can pick a favourite song although I enjoyed the lyrics particularly on Your God Is Ending You. One track segues gently into another and I can only suggest that this is a record you have to listen to as a coherent whole rather than the odd track otherwise you just aren’t getting it.

I’m somewhat confused and flabbergasted here, folks. I wanted to hate it so bad. And I can’t. It has its own fragile beauty hinting at underlying simmering fury and if you let Shitty Person off its leash then I get the feeling it would instantly go for the throat. Instead, you have this shimmering, ethereal, almost gentle record bleeding emotion all over you. Damn them to hell. I hate their name. There you go; we have ended in my usual unpleasant fashion. Shitty Person, shitty name, annoyingly good band. However, if you are a metal purist, you must avoid this record at all costs because you will fucking hate it. If, however, you value drone and shoegaze and an experience that is visceral in a different form, you could do a lot worse than take a punt…

The Dark Juan Patented Blood Splat Rating System is now worried about his metal credentials but will make up for it by reviewing some pure metal soon. 7/10 for Shitty Person. That’s two marks down for not being all that metal and a mark for their appalling name. That’s the equivalent of several corpses of backpackers being investigated by Tokyo police in the aftermath of a new Issei Sagawa copyist’s frenzy.

TRACKLIST:

Butthole
Take Your Clothes Off
Champagne And Cakes
Nobody Likes You
Your God Is Ending You
Dumb Shit
Behemoth
Dark Bear

benjaminthomaskennedy.wordpress.com
https://www.facebook.com/judgementrock/

This review is the property of Dark Juan and Metal Gods TV. It is strictly prohibited to copy any part of this review, unless you have all of the parties’ permission, or are the band/record label/PR company in question. Failure to adhere to these instructions will be considered as Plagiarism and you will be reported to the appropriate authorities.

---