Send "Shrag " Ringtones to your Cell 
| Pitchfork |
 Shrag take their name from an apartment block in their hometown of Brighton, England. According to an interview the quintet did this summer with the blog Rhubarb Bomb, one of the band members lived in a building called Sussex Heights, so their unusual moniker is really an acronym for "Sussex Heights Roving Artist Group." Not exactly the kind of thing you imagine they settled on expecting to have to market it all these years later to a wider audience. Was this Joy Division? Not at all. The Desperate Bicycles? Shampoo? Bis? Getting warmer...Shrag's self-titled debut album was the result of a similarly haphazard process, and it turned out to be one of last year's most enjoyable indie pop releases. Scruffy, heartbroken, and genuinely communicative at a time when bands are increasingly getting by on mood or genre signifiers alone, Shrag collected some of the well-crafted, cleverly affecting singles and mp3s the band had quietly offered up in the past few years, including "Hopelessly Wasted", "Forty Five 45s", and (for those of us still too freaked out by adulthood to become parents) "Pregnancy Scene". With Life! Death! Prizes!, Shrag attempt a sophomore LP that works more like an album than a collection of singles, and they mostly succeed. When they're doing tightly coiled pop songs that could stand beautifully on their own, the group-- now two women and three men, following former drummer Leigh-Ann's illness-related departure-- can be quite charming. Keyboard-streaked and punk-spiked, boy-girl duets "Tights in August" and "Rabbit Kids" are as catchy and upbeat as the feelings they express are confused and conflicted: "Your love is like your August tights/ It looks all right, but they're impractical tonight." Slowing it down but not turning off the distortion for "Their Stats", Life! Death! Prizes! scores another potential alternate-universe hit, a jagged, jerking anxiety attack that feels like the apt product of a time when "friendship" has become nothing but a number on a Facebook scorecard....full text |
| Thelineofbestfit |
| On emerging a few years ago, Cribs-supporting Brightonians Shrag couldn’t decide what they were. Electro vamps? Kenickie-like pop-punk smart alecs? Shouty riot grrrls with messages? Last year’s self-titled debut album tried all those hats on for size, but then it was to all intents and purposes a compilation of their 7″ output to date. Now they’re charged with recording songs as an album, they’ve learned to straighten out a bit. Helen King is less yelpy, the dual keyboards are relegated in the mix and most of the melodies are stronger without giving out to all-out commercialism. It’s art-pop, kids. Art-pop, that is, very much as we know it. Liberally picking from post-punk’s rhythmic edge, C86 indiepop and day-glo pop (not in the electronic revival sense, despite the buzzing synths), there’s a new found swagger to Shrag’s sound that decries their DIY past and instils in its place a sense of wiry purpose. The enormous hook in the middle of single ‘Rabbit Kids’, flirting openly with the Long Blondes while retaining its jangly purpose, isn’t something they could have pulled off before now. Similarly the meaty, menacing bassline underpinning ‘A Certain Violence’, leading into the sort of angular attack Ikara Colt specialised in before it all dissolves into everyone singing/shouting over everyone else. If that’s not enough to demonstrate their comfort in uncomfortableness, ‘The Habit Creep’ has King delivering lasciviously quixotic spoken word verses, the tense, almost mocking air matched with a dense stew of needling guitars that gradually grow in intensity and break out for a chorus of sorts. Eventually, between ‘Tights In August’, relocating Heavenly to Sheffield’s fertile ground of indiepop loucheness via a becalmed Prolapse, and ‘Ghosts Before Breakfast’ dragging Life Without Buildings to the electro-New Wave dancefloor it clicks that Shrag haven’t so much pinpointed what they’re best at as grown in confidence at reassessing their strengths into something more coherent and less artful for the sake of it. After that spell of excitable, quite sinister inventiveness within its parameters, the slump sets in. The second half after ‘Rabbit Kids” breezy greatness can’t match up, going over old ground listlessly – here a Manda Rin shout, there a song reminding this listener of nobody so much as late 90s also-rans Linoleum, the preceding intrigue for the love of the form increasingly whittled away until we reach ‘More Than Mornings” Fall-like thrash in search of a Fall-like point. Also anyone else who came across the debut album by the Kiara Elles earlier in the year might find their opinion coloured, given Slide Over was a not all that dissimilar but mildly superior mesh of strident female vocals, tripwire bass and subtle synth (‘Stubborn Or Bust’ particularly guilty on this score), although I’d put it down to coincidence....full text |
| Contactmusic |
| Owners to one of the most unusual names in British music, Shrag are a Brighton-based quintet who release this, their second album, in October. The follow up to their self titled debut, it will be supported by a handful of shows across the country which begin in late September. Clearly out to grab attention, 'A Certain Violence' is an intense mixture of driving bass and choppy guitars that make a strong impression. It is followed by the melodic indie of 'Stubborn Or Bust', which is equally endearing, while a likeable pop edge is displayed by 'Their Stats'. A trio of highlights, also worth noting is the fun rock'n'roll of 'Rabbit Kids' and 'When We Go Courting', which wouldn't have been out of place in the days of Britpop, while 'More Than Mornings' converts an appreciation of punk and ska into a bouncy anthem. It maintains a good standard of song on what is a raw recording, but the lasting impression is actually of no impression. Enjoyable whilst heard, there's nothing that really sticks in the mind....full text |
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