Both bands hail from the historical town of Parma and are deeply related with one of the outstanding labels for stoner and psych doom in Italy, Moonlight Records. Shinin’ Shade are by now what may be called as a well-established band that started out in 2005 as Madness City Band and adopted the present-day name in 2008. They released a demo during 2009 and their self-titled debut full-length as a male-only quartet in 2010. I had seen Shinin’ Shade playing live in an unbearably sticky hot summer night of 2010 when they opened for Baroness in a half-empty Milano. Not the best conditions for playing for sure for a young band. Nevertheless you could tell about the solid potentials of those long-haired guys looking like hippies and who dig hard rock, smokey groove and fuzz of desert rock, the sonic trips of the vintage heavy bluesy prog rock and acid psychedelia as well as some experimentation.
These guys adopted English-sounding artistic names, which might seem a bit weird, but is quite a vintage-sounding habit as it may remind of what some Italian rock and pop musicians were used to do back in the 60s. The core of the line-up included Mek Jefrey on guitars and vocals, Allen Kramer on guitars and mellotron, Roger Davis on bass and, since 2009, Mike De Chirico on drums. Mike De Chirico then entered also another cool band from Parma, Caronte ( HERE ) in full activity. The EP Slowmosheen arrived in early 2012, after two years of experience as well as after a remarkable change, i.e. the inclusion of a fifth member, lady vocalist Jane Esther-Collins. Both components, i.e. experience and a completely different singing style, surely contributed to a remarkable evolution in this cool band. I happened to see their solid debut gig for launching EP Slowmosheen when the band opened for Pagan Altar in their home town and you could say the band had grown professionally quite a lot. The appreciation for the new EP and line-up almost naturally lead to the release of a new full-length album called Sat-Urn during 2013 via Moonlight Records. Album Sat-Urn is undoubtedly charming. The name, either in full or in its parts, is evocative of dark and occult atmospheres, not to mention the stunning, gloomy yet flamboyant graphic ornaments of the CD by Matteo Tumulash.
As to the music, in its 7 ballads lasting altogether over 48 minutes Sat-Urn testifies what might be called the “maturity” of the band, although I prefer to see it as the attainment of a high level of skill for this quintet. The tag “maturity” is a bit limiting … The band didn’t change its multifaceted style during these years, as the guys are still blending elements of doom and desert-stoner rock with substantial amounts of retro prog psych/krautrock and a whiff of experimentation, but they do it in a tighter and heavier way. As a matter of fact in the new album their amount of heaviness increased together with the sense of occult, or better, of introversion. Tracks are long enough (between 6 and +8 minutes) to allow the different shades of this band unfold. Guitars and bass sounds are fuzzy, gritty and thundering, as is the slow plodding drumming in the ritualistic development of the ballads. In the whole album explosions of doomy distorted sounds may often give way to more atmospheric intervals where the braided guitar sounds let you escape into airy psychedelia, in an ideal oscillation between darkness and light. In this respect the deeply doom-laden opening track Our Time and Space offers a cool welcome to the listener with its Electric Wizardesque ambience pleasantly relieved by trippy psych rock. However there is no rigid scheme for the songs in this album.
Jane's vocals are crystal clear and powerful and imposing even over the roaring guitars. Jane’s tone is vintage-sounding and comparable with Jess of the Finnish band Jess and the Ancient One and Alia O’Brien of Canadian Blood Ceremony. After listening to the album a friend of mine in love with psychedelia told me “not quite like Grace Slick, but … but sometimes not that far” Jane may transform her vocals in a surprising way, be it either in a doomy refrain or a prog rock structure or an atmospheric psychedelic interlude. Listen, for example, to what she can masterfully do in tracks Keyhole/Inner Saturn and Over-Sea Nightmares. These second and third tracks are some great dynamic heavy ballads lead by a tight and rapidly evolving and catchy rhythms. Halfway through the ballads as soon as guitars and drumming rapidly slow down and enter the darkness of doom mixed with space or acid psychedelic jamming, like a spaceship entering the foggy atmosphere of a mysterious planet, Jane’s vocals strikingly change, get deformed and dissonant. Jane becomes a real witch casting spells with an amazingly and dangerously seducing rogue voice.
Track Through the Wires provides further weapons of mass seduction via blending a proggy intro with the intimacy of a surprising retro-jazzy core simply lead by touches of bass and Jane’s vocals turning to the softest velvet. Tracks Nowhere Dimension and the stunning Denied Lovers are where the band devote particularly to prog and heavy psychedelics and introduce mild contamination of retro doom imparting power and a creepy, occult touch. But the core of suite Denied Lovers is lead by a circular heavy riff which may sounds bluesy/proggy but is pure groove straight from Sabbath Bloody Sabbath. Gloomy space noise is what annihilates the powerful riffs in Denied Lovers but this is not the way the band is going to close the album. The last track Epic Talking is an intense yet refreshing ballad where the band further celebrates heaviness and atmosphere by blending the addictive simplicity of desert-stoner rock with the exotic complexity of prog and krautrock. These guys know how to write and play great songs, bar none. Having a female singer is not automatic guarantee of success for a doom-oriented band, even if in this period this feature seems to be very much appreciated. In any case you need something “substantial” below, craftmaship in writing and playing good music, otherwise everything may turn into a flash in the pan. And this is surely not the case for Shinin’ Shade.
Words: Marilena Moroni
Shinin Shade | Moonlight Records