Shearling played Deep Cuts – 9/17
Sprain offshoot Shearling played a mind-altering marathon show at Deep Cuts with Brother Dragon and A Monolithic Dome.
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Much like everyone else on the east coast, I never had a chance to see L.A. experimental rockers Sprain during their relatively brief run. The band formed in 2018 and played primarily in and around their hometown prior to an abrupt 2023 dissolution, which came just weeks after the release of the monolithic, 90-minute-plus sophomore record that helped cement their revered status among a certain type of very online music fan. I heard The Lamb as Effigy then and found its ambitious scope and sonic boundary-pushing intriguing, but truthfully my appetite for endurance-test records has waned since my more sonically self-destructive college radio days. It was a one-and-done at the time – something probably best experienced in a live setting that was no longer a possibility.
Some time later, enter Shearling, Sprain guitarists Alexander Kent’s and Sylvie Simmons’ new project carrying forth the spirit (and unfinished material) of their old band. Their debut release, last year’s wildly-titled Motherfucker, I am Both: “Amen” and “Hallelujah” was an even bigger swing than Effigy – traversing apocalyptic post-noise-rock, manic vocalizations and experimental diversions over the course of a single 63-minute track. Its relatively breezy 33-minute followup EP Don’t Look at Me the Way a Dog Might Look at Your Leg (they’re full of these titles, evidently) was certainly more digestible, but no less harrowing. Again, I wouldn’t call either release something I’d throw on for a casual listen, but with the band finally making a Boston-area debut at Deep Cuts last month, I had to get a taste of the full experience.
The show I caught – which spanned almost two hours and reached volume levels that at times felt physically dangerous – was genuinely unlike anything I’ve seen on stage for quite some time. A setlist.fm search for this tour indicates that at some point the band played at least a section of Motherfucker, which I do think I heard, but the majority of the set consisted of new material that trended away from the spiraling madness of Shearling’s recorded output towards an ecstatic totalism – an overwhelming swell of rhythm and texture that seemed to have no beginning or end once you were in the center. Guitars (often three of them between Kent, Simmons and Elizabeth Carver) screeched, wailed and cast off sheets of pure noise transcending what a guitar was ever meant to sound like, while the rhythm section of drummer Andrew Chanover and bassist Wesley Nelson pounded out relentless Möbius-strip grooves. By the set’s end, Kent’s electric organ took over for a coda that brought the crowd – a young one who’d spent the night devoutly headbanging – to something resembling church.
The RIYL comparison that the Shearling/Sprain extended universe seems to draw most often is Swans, whose punishing multi-hour live sets are certainly a reference point (as is Kent’s Gira-esque fervor in conducting it all). As a recovering Swans Guy (for both personal and other reasons), that’s not always a zone I want to step into anymore, but there’s no denying that it’s rarefied air – the ability to harness the elemental building blocks of a rock band and genuinely push them well past their conventional limits to achieve something new. Hell, I’m writing about this set three weeks after the fact (not really by choice, mind you) and the experience still feels visceral, like it just happened. You’ve gotta appreciate that you don’t see a performance like that every day.
Scroll below for a gallery from the night, including a lovely ambient-singer-songwriter set from Brother Dragon and a uniquely stripped-down guitar/bass performance from local favs A Monolithic Dome.
