Shell of a Shell and Friends Look for Light in the Dark at Fond Object

While Elohim was spreading universal love over at Exit/In on Friday, The Spin was getting introspective at Fond Object’s downtown store on Fourth Avenue South. Shell of a Shell, a group featuring members of bands that draw on multi-hyphenate subgenres of rock and punk (thrashy speed-pop outfit Gnarwhal, post-punk-ish group Watcher and country-psych quartet Teddy and the Rough Riders) was getting ready to celebrate the release of their debut EP Already There on cassette. SoaS and their guests on the bill all offered intelligent takes and intriguing spins on the styles they draw from, making another compelling argument that rock, broadly defined, is becoming something better than ever. 

Bleary, a Music City band that sounds a good bit like its name, kicked things off. Drummer Jon Miller (also of Future DZ and Tram Planet Records) and bassist Taro Yamazaki laid a sturdy foundation for the harmonizing guitars and voices of Callan Dwan and Peter Mercer (both were in Dogtooth, and Dwan was once in Idle Bloom). The effects on their guitars made a layer of haze over their crisp and intricate melodies. They’ve taken their time to establish themselves, and that has served them well — beneath the warbling fuzz, they were purposeful in dishing out their dreamy post-rock-y pop songs about disillusionment.

After a few plays on the store’s Elton John Captain Fantastic pinball machine, it was time to experience a special solo set from Newtown, Conn., native Steve Hartlett. He played cuts from the catalog of his current band Stove, from his earlier band Ovlov and songs written for a future project that hasn’t quite come together yet. The threads tying them all together were their lyrics’ luminous melancholy and Hartlett’s gorgeous guitar work, which he presented in a disorienting way. His acoustic guitar was run through the P.A., as well as through a cheesy multi-effects pedal and a tiny amp with a tremendous amount of distortion and echo, so that it sounded like a second guitar doubling the melody in the distance. He apologized for songs he wrote as an emotional teen, but he really didn’t have anything to apologize for — he’s good at writing the kind of song that reveals a truth about sadness in its story.

A few minutes later, Hartlett was back onstage to play bass alongside drummer Michael Thomas in Maneka, the project led by singer-guitarist Devin McKnight. Since leaving his longtime post in Speedy Ortiz last summer, McKnight has released one cassette, Is You Is. The songs eloquently address what it’s like to be a young black man exploring and expressing his identity in a cultural space where audiences and performers are predominantly white. Many young black people choose to express themselves through hip-hop or R&B, but McKnight is inspired by punk, jazz, aggressive post-punk and psychedelic experimental pop. McKnight and his bandmates use all of these tools to convey his ideas, and they came out muscular and warped, like a cassette recorded over and over. (McKnight’s Talkhouse essay on U2's new album is also highly recommended reading.)

Shell of a Shell, the band of the hour, set up almost in the round, with bassman Noel Richards down in the crowd facing drummer Nick Swafford, and guitarist Dylan Liverman and singer-guitarist Chappy Hull on the stage. They launched straight into the heavy strangeness of the songs from Already There. The record explores a complex philosophical issue: Contrary to It’s a Wonderful Life, you can’t really know what your life would be like without you in it. That’s a reality that can be overwhelming and unsettling at first, but can also be a source of comfort and strength when you’ve had some time to process it. Hull & Co. dig deep into that conundrum on the record, and we’d like to have heard the vocals a little more clearly at the show, but the glove-tight band was just a little too loud for the P.A. In this case, the loudness was necessary, as they whipped up a technical, visceral hardcore fury that swivels on a dime into ominous post-rock with the occasional jazz or pop flourish. Even if the lyrics were a little obscured, the nuanced and dynamic emotional message was loud and clear.

Each of the bands we saw on Friday has a lot of dimensions to its sound, but they’re all remarkably skilled at balancing them so that the story or emotion they’re trying to convey stays at the center. If there’s any recipe for rock music to remain relevant, that’s one of its key ingredients.

See our slideshow for more photos.

In The Spin — the Scene's live review column — staffers and freelance contributors review concerts under a collective byline.