The Shivers – More
(2011, Silence Breaks)
The Shivers, whose many virtues have been extolled on these virtual pages, return with a new full-length, More, on a nascent Brooklyn imprint called Silence Breaks. On More, Keith Zarriello and Jo Schornikow have honed the Shivers sound into a sinewy muscle of outsider indie R&B (perhaps the first of the genre?).
More collects 10 songs – some new, some reworked from earlier releases – unabashedly about love and the longing of watching love from a place of loss. “Kisses” was originally released on the Shivers’ 2004 dense, outstanding Charades and receives a pretty thorough reworking here. Whereas the Charades version is lonely guy, lo fi bedroom music, the More version is a sweaty, Stax-inspired slow dance. The organ sways, the bass thumps and the lyrics begin with the plea “Give me your kisses, baby/ I am just a rock and roll kid.” Likewise “Used to Be” and “Love is in the Air,” originally found on Zarriello’s recent Truants from Life solo effort (also excellent and worth checking out), are redone here with added instrumentation, energy and purpose. The new songs, especially “Irrational Love and “Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars,” blend grit, soul, and conviction with Zarriello’s unflinching, economical lyrics. The closing title track is a killer of a ballad, all burning and introspection.
The Shivers – Used To Be by Silence Breaks
More is an ambitious collection of genuine love songs that manage to be smart, gritty, and bursting with, for lack of a better word, heart. There’s nothing affected, cutesy clever, or self-conscious about the Shivers’ music – it manages to be both simple and undeniably vital.