The Shell Corporation
Mandrake
Paper + Plastick Records
There’s still some righteous anger left in the music industry, although it’s starting to feel as old as hippies singing about free love and ending the war that their grandparents fought. The Shell Corporation takes their vocal cues from the ’90s high dudgeon about civic unfairness, lack of opportunity, and the general pissy feeling we all have on the back side of adolescence. Although, if you take that with a spoon of ipecac you’ll have a wonderful time banging your head, air guitar-ing in front of the mirror and spray painting the circle A on your skateboard.
I love the energy here, but I was put off by the opening track “Appetite for Distraction” with its metal battering. By “Trust Us,” I’m totally on board with the angry slide guitars and angrier lyrics. There’s more than a few anthems here; if you rocked out to The Offspring, these guys might as well be their moral descendants, but it’s not all fancy guitar work. “Hear Them Wail” echoes The Clash’s later work sans the reggae line, and the best title is even more ticked off, “Even Bob Villa Couldn’t Fix This Old House.” Now there’s a cultural reference kids today will miss completely. Get up off your butt and start dancing or protesting, there’s things WRONG in the world today and YOU need to get angry at them. Not that it will change much, but if you don’t start somewhere, The Shell Corporation will be standing out in the storm playing to no one but themselves, and that would be a cultural shame.
