Shit And Shine’s music might sound like a pain-inducing endurance test put out by a group that clearly isn’t shy of a little shocktatic publicity. But that doesn’t stop it being both engrossingly addictive and, rather surprisingly, the leading candidate in the contest for the music that most perceptively captures the zeitgeist of today’s Britain.
Because Shit And Shine’s aggressive, repetitive, warped and distorted riffs and beats do not even hint at any suggestion of narrative or story-telling and make no attempt whatsoever to engage with the listener intellectually.
As a result Shit And Shine are a brutal cleansing dentist’s drill of a band who have eradicated, by design or by accident, any kind of overt vision or way out of the now from their music.
There is no escapism, no story-telling, no empathetic advice, little hope and certainly no sentimentality in Shit And Shine. And in that, maybe, Shit And Shine have put their collective fingers on the state of Britain today.
That might sound a little depressing, but, paradoxically, I don’t think it is.
When you listen with an open mind and open ears to Shit And Shine, the brutal honesty at the heart of their music sounds as refreshing, as exciting and as positively uplifting as anything for years. And that brutal honesty at its heart seems to trump any amount of bogus, watery-eyed, ‘vision’ from their supposedly more optimistic musical rivals.
Recorded in 2008 and originally released as an exclusive track on Rough Trade’s ‘Counter Culture 08′ compilation.
It was then included on Shit And Shine’s 2009 release, ’229 2299 Girls Against Shit!’: Amazon
Awesome.