Shipwreck are four Midwestern gents who, as far as anyone can tell, have never been anywhere near the ocean. In fact, there is no evidence that they even know anyone who owns a boat. Nevertheless, they have a sound that somehow evokes the enigmatic, haunting, and sometimes dangerous allure of the open sea. It seems an all-too-convenient metaphor, but in practice the metaphor feels true. Alternately placid and furious, Shipwreck melds quiet and loud in a way that might fall apart in lesser hands, but they do more than just keep it together; in fact, on a good night they make you forget, if just for a moment, where you are, who you’re with, and what you’re doing tomorrow.
Tirelessly pounding the floorboards of stages across the Midwest and beyond for the last couple of years has honed this four-piece into a formidable, mesmerizing live presence who also happen to put out great records. Co-songwriters, guitarists, and vocalists Harman Jordan and John Owen bring unique but complementary stamps to the band’s music; Owen is, per se, the McCartney to Jordan’s Lennon, or Jordan the Kannberg to Owen’s Malkmus. Vague analogies aside, let’s just say they complement one another quite nicely. Meanwhile, drummer Christopher Waage and bassist Vladimir Brilliant anchor the proceedings with stone-cold ferocity, a constant reminder that there is more to this band than the two guys with guitars and microphones – this is the rhythm section you want behind you in a bar fight.
In 2006, the band embarked with an ambitious goal to continuously record: instead of holing up in the studio every year or two, the seafarers opted to stay in the midst of the tide, recording the 2006 EPs House of Cards and Walk in the Woods as soon as the songs materialized. By continually returning to the studio, the band learned quickly how best to translate their evolving live songs into fully realized recordings. Equally remarkable is the growth of the band’s live show, where musical bridges influenced by ideas born in the studio began to connect the songs to form a tight, breathtaking set.
Which brings us to 2007 and Rabbit in the Kitchen With a New Dress On, in many ways the logical result of Shipwreck’s past year of constant strengthening. The band has moved—momentarily— from the continuous EP project to the long-playing format. The album is a sonic blast of desert heat that recalls a synchronicity between the dreamy darkness of Depeche Mode and the raucous abandon of the Pixies. Haunting images and fractured narratives create an enveloping reality of Lynchian eeriness. Rabbit is one for the books: altogether tighter, sharper, more aware of its borders and more solid for it, than Shipwreck has ever been.
And it’s more than that: there is deep knowledge apparent in this playing. The combinations of layers relay something distinctly contemporary, but listening to the parts—the extracted parts, the revealing moments where the layers drop
off—we find the Byrds, early U2, and Radiohead as well as countless other points of reference. Every listen reveals something new: whether it’s a drum-fill or a lyric you hadn’t found quite so poignant on previous runs-through, Rabbit stays consistently fresh. And best of all, you can’t help but feel Shipwreck is a band steadily ascending the tunnel uphill, never resting and constantly better, the peak still only a pinhole of light at the end.
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