Shunkan’s LP, The Pink Noise, came out on Friday (November 20th), but it’s, Anything But Love, that’s truly captured my attention.
It’s as easy to unravel as any vulnerable love song has been, but Shunkan’s embrace into the world of ‘love-songs’ is something to take note on. While bands such as Best Coast and The Naked & Famous have their anchors set in lo-fi genres, something in Shunkan’s Anything But Love feels ten times more alluring, more powerful, more emotionally provoking.
Personally, the high intensity felt from Marina’s vocals completely divert the focus from her usual lo-fi loaded guitars (in the most, perfect way imaginable). At the tracks beginning, her guitar tones are graceful and glide around like clouds in a dream, when in the chorus, power amplifies them tenfold, turning up the lo-fi completely. But yet still, Marina sings with the emotion felt from every 90’s kid, who has faced the new millennium’s harsh romantic reality. All of this loads into Marina’s vocals which simply can’t be described in purely adjective forms (no matter how many synonyms we could find). The only definition of Marina’s strength in her voice you could realistically use, it that she is becoming as powerful as any sell-out arena star.
The raw 90’s spirit, meets the rushed 00’s lo-fi, is what gives Shunkan’s Anything But Love, its edge over pretty much any love song in current circulation.
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