Shaemless and Their Organic Take On Garage-laced Punk via Debut Album 'SUUZ'

 

Punk as we know it has from its very origins been tinged with and derived from musical subculture and genre that appears on surface level to have no sort of tangible link. It’s true that the DIY punk subculture, spawning in the midst of the seventies and dying a commercial death just a number of years later, changed the face of contemporary music forever. Knowledge, however, surrounding the style’s accompanying sounds and ideals are confusingly misconstrued by the media as being hatched no earlier than the mid-seventies. In reality, ‘punk’ has been a slow moving, idea-accumulating vessel since the beginning of rock’n’roll, and perhaps even before that. Glam, or ‘proto-punk’ acts of the late-sixties and onward, most notably The Stooges, MC5, New York Dolls, take their unmatched energy from the grit and soul of Delta blues and gospel acts, drawing heavily also from rawness of early rockabilly records by the likes of The Seeds and The Sonics.  Take the syncopated drums of Dick Dale and his Del-tones, the resounding and unrelenting speed at which early Elvis Presley and Eddie Cochran recordings move- the tempo and animation of tracks by such artists are mirrored in the energy and attitude of punk and its relevant subgenres, with said glam acts simply bridging the gap between two eras of revolutionary music subculture. 

Perhaps this is why Netherlands post-punks Shaemless are able to revoke such a recognisable albeit uniquely organic sound. Forming in the Dutch city of Nijmejen, the quartet released a string of singles and EPs during a rough three year period, encapsulating their raw early musical attitude, heavily dominated by jarring garage, psychobilly and blues-rock-style sensibilities. As lockdown rules ensued from early 2020, Shameless’s requisite rest-period from gigging as a result of such laws resulted in the eventual release of 2021’s Appreciate, the raucous lead single off of debut album SUUZ, the centerpiece and arguably highlight of the LP. The track itself offers an indication unto Shaemless’s progression toward a more mature style of songwriting, crystal clear production quality and pellucid musical direction. It feels as though, as intriguing as their collection of pre-SUUZ material is, Appreciate is the beginning of a new chapter for the Nijmejen four-piece. 

Shameless’s descent into a more developed and complex style of song composition may stray from the purity of their early work in terms of punk and blues derivatives, however the band’s decision to delve into a vaster sonic and melodic territory in fact allows for the content of SUUZ to become enriched with a contrasting type of emotional depth. Shameless’s experimentation with instrumentation on this record, such as rippling strings and synthesizers, as well as expansive vocal and guitar effects conveys a presence unheard in their earlier work, achieving a different but ultimately more impactful kind of heaviness from beginning to end.

Album opener White Statues is a perfect example of Shaemless’s stylistic malleability. Compressed vocals and shrill guitar noise is greeted by boxy, claustrophobic drums and an easy-to-swallow three note riff, quickly followed by a juxtaposing series of celestial, chorus-soaked swells. The repetitive and simplistic nature of post-punk is what allows for vocal phrasing, bass hooks and guitar riffs alike to be carried over an entire segment of a song as an ongoing passage, or ostinato, and still sound captivating and fresh. Shaemless latch onto this technique, whether subconsciously or not, and in turn produce a series of explicitly snappy, pop-structured earworms. The entire A-side of SUUZ is rife with this particular style of writing, tracks like Picnic Picnic and Build Up The Shame setting the album’s tone; verse-chorus-verse frameworks with punchy riffs and enticing drumming patterns that could all easily pacify as singles of their own accord. Many of the tracks that appear on SUUZ are derivative of the likes of our post-punk predecessors, from the psychobilly-procured, slap-back echoes reminiscent of early Cramps records to the sludgy West Coast rock’n’roll timbre of The Gun Club. Regardless, Shaemless pave the way for a much wider, contemporary sound on this LP, entwining indie and garage-revival intonation with vintage punk foundations. The way in which frontman Daan Sturm slurs and drools his contorted poetry is strongly reminiscent of Iceage’s Elias Ronnenfelt, while the schematic rhythm section and roomy drums that parallel the likes of Fontaines D.C and Protomartyr make for a clear-cut move toward a more modernistic musical approach.

It may well be down to the fact that the majority of SUUZ was composed during lockdown, but the album carries with it a deep-seated, overriding air of paranoia and lonesomeness. WDR-5 reminds the audience of the album’s undercurrent of lost hope and psychological introspection; isolated synth lines accompanied by the sound of faraway, echo-enshrouded ringing telephones and contorted one-way speech appears sandwiched in between a Blitzkrieg of high-octane punk as to transmit this notion. Following track Weakness serves to lay bare the fluidity of Shameless’s stylistic tendencies, unapologetically taking the album from instrumental dark-ambience swiftly to a rapture of seething noise, speed and distortion. That being said, SUUZ in its very nature is a record that cannot help but tap into a variety of emotional states, both lyrically and melodically, due to its vast exploration of contrasting tonal qualities. This is an album that, put simply, has its groundings in the raucous energy of punk yet is decorated with a multitude of polyphonic texture and influence, spanning a seemingly infinite timeline of musical inspiration.

I spoke with Tom Brouwers, one fourth of the Netherlands quartet, on the lengthy writing process of SUUZ, recording live tracks for the debut effort out of an abandoned warehouse, their genre-spanning musical influence, touring the UK with post-punks Lumer and DEAFDEAFDEAF, and more.

 

Daan. Photography- anon

(DH) - How and when did Shaemless come to form?

(TB) - “Tom, Daan and Cyril started playing together in primary school when we were ten years old. We kept playing together for a couple of years just for fun doing some shows in our home town. Then in 2015 we won a band contest in our hometown and started to write more of our own material, and in 2016 Pep joined us on bass. We released some EPs in those years, gradually building a name in the Netherlands. In 2020 we decided to take things more seriously, but Covid hit. So we were stuck without gigs but decided it was a good time to write; so we wrote and recorded our debut album ‘SUUZ’ during Covid. Now it’s out, and we get to gig again.”

- You released the excellent SUUZ in late February- compared to your past string of EPs and singles, how would you say the sound of the record differs from that of your earlier material?

- “The sound of the music, and also the lyrics, are more grown-up, so to speak. That’s because we’ve grown up ourselves. The songs are better structured- we think- as we spend more time trying to get this right. Also the sound and recordings are on a different level since we got to work with a very talented producer and mixer from the Netherlands called Matthijs Kievit from Studio Joneski. Also in terms of genre we took more inspiration from post-punk and noise, drifting further from our blues and garage roots. Although, they are still present here and there on the debut album.”

- The album’s content certainly lends itself tonally and structurally toward eighties goth-rock and punk, tying in subtle rockabilly and surf influences. Are there any artists that you were listening to at the time of writing and recording SUUZ that you’d cite as an inspiration to the LP?

- “Yes, Iceage, Swans, Fontaines D.C, The Birthday Party, De Staat and Death Grips.”

- What was the recording process behind SUUZ?

- “We have our own studio in Milsbeek, which is a small village near Nijmegen. We also rehearse there and spend weekends there from time to time to write. So we wrote everything there and then invited the producer over for two weeks to record everything. Most of it is recorded live. There is also a large warehouse next to the studio which has a nice echo, which was used on some tracks.”

- Released in April 2021, Appreciate is the first track to be heard off of the debut LP. Why was Appreciate chosen as the lead single?

- “We wrote Appreciate right before the lockdown in our country, in the basement of a bar which is owned by friends of ours. This was a pretty weird time as nobody really knew how things were gonna go with the virus. That uncertainty and nervousness is also in the song. So we felt like that was a song that fitted with the times. Also, it’s one of our favorite songs from the album.”

- As a band hailing from Nijmegen, would you say that the music Shaemless create fits well into the Nijmegen music scene? 

- “The Nijmegen music scene is quite diverse, but I think the band culture is quite dominant. So in that sense we fit in very well. Over the years, I think that we have managed to create a sound and performance that is really our own, which gives us our own place among those bands so to say. A lot of that development is thanks to the scene in our hometown. For example, one of our biggest inspirations from early on has been De Staat. They are a band from our hometown and are now one of the biggest bands in our country. They cross many boundaries of what you think a ‘typical band’ would sound like. This has broadened our views as to what we ourselves can sound like as a band. But apart from bands, people in Nijmegen enjoy live music a lot. So, there is a lot of support coming from many different places. From venues to record stores, to people just being enthusiastic about what you do. This really helps when you are just starting out as a new band, so we owe a lot to the music scene in Nijmegen.”

- You’ve just come off of a tour, playing in the UK with post-punks Lumer and DEAFDEAFDEAF. How was the experience?

“We have done a few shows in the UK in June, also London and Manchester. The shows were very good! People were very enthusiastic and kind and we made quite a few new fans. We were also very impressed with the bands we got to play with. We heard the levels were very high in the UK, so we were quite nervous coming over. And the bands delivered. Both Lumer and DEAFDEAFDEAF are amazing bands, both in their music and performance. Other bands we really enjoyed were Pizza Crunch, The Dirty English and Katz. The British audience is also not afraid to get engaged in a performance. So our first time in the UK was great.”

- Finally, when can fans catch Shaemless live?

- “The 15th of July, we do a show in The Hague at Pip Expo. Then 22nd of July we do Valkhof Festival which is a very cool festival in our hometown. They have a lot of cool upcoming bands, for example Fontaines D.C back in 2018. We have been looking forward to playing there for a while so that will be a big one; the 22nd is also our singer’s birthday. Then 23rd of July we fly back to Manchester to do Be Here Now Festival, which is a cool festival throughout the Northern Quarter.” 

Listen to SUUZ on all major music platforms now.