Somewhere beneath the visible layers of the indie hype machine lives a band from the outer boroughs of New York City called the Shivers. The Shivers are seemingly a band in the same way that the Mountain Goats, Destroyer and Bright Eyes are a band – one founding singer songwriter periodically surrounded by supporting members. Keith Zarriello, in that light, is the Shivers and he is a gifted and original songwriter of the highest order. Zarriello writes anguished, confessional songs with enough darkness and humor to fend off the trappings of pretension and self absorption. The arrangements tend to be simple, often bluesy, leaving enough space for the nuanced, personal lyrics to stretch out a bit. More than anything else, Zarriello’s songs benefit from an uncanny lack of self-consciousness or pandering for adulation. The Shivers have been kicking around for almost a decade with little in terms of acclaim or recognition to show for it, only a varied and formidable body of work. Zarriello began releasing music as the Shivers back in 2004 with Charades and there have been three subsequent, apparently self-released, Shivers albums since then, most recently 2009’s In The Morning, which features a handful of amazing songs like “African Passport”:
The high water mark of the Shivers’ body of work may be “L.I.E.”, a smart, heartsick song featured on two of the four releases (Charades and Phone Calls). The Phone Calls version is cleaner and more compelling, helped immensely by the considerable talents of Joanna Schornikow, who has taken on a crucial role in this latest incarnation of the band on keyboard and backing vocals.
In a lot of ways Zarriello doesn’t fit the stereotypical indie folk, Portlandia mold (though he does “put a bird on it” for the cover art to 2008’s Beaks to the Moon) – he seems more like a tense, frail, yet street-tough character from Scorsese’s After Hours than a bearded bike messenger. The Shivers have been afforded relatively little in the way of acclaim or taste-making support (swap Zarriello in with Kurt Vile’s – big up to Delco, PA – recent success and we may have a more interesting, or at least more difficult, Springsteen-ian voice in our midst) so this writer suggests that those of you still reading check out the Shivers ASAP. Buy their music, go see them live if you’re in New York or Providence or Boston or other East Coast cities they periodically play – and, if you’re up for it, drop them a line. Check out the Shivers’ blog, on Facebook and on Myspace and pick up their albums: