Skip to content
Facebook Instagram Twitter Youtube

psychedelic Scene Magazine

psychedelic Scene Magazine

  • Features
  • Interviews
  • Reviews
  • Categories
    • Music
    • Interviews
    • Lists
    • Books
    • Art
    • Columns
    • Science
Menu
  • Features
  • Interviews
  • Reviews
  • Categories
    • Music
    • Interviews
    • Lists
    • Books
    • Art
    • Columns
    • Science
Navbar
  • Features
  • Interviews
  • Reviews
  • Categories
    • Music
    • Interviews
    • Lists
    • Books
    • Art
    • Columns
    • Science
Menu
  • Features
  • Interviews
  • Reviews
  • Categories
    • Music
    • Interviews
    • Lists
    • Books
    • Art
    • Columns
    • Science

The Dead Shakers: Some Shapes Reappear– Album Review

PrevPrevious“Suicide” Headaches
NextInterview: Bonnie Bloomgarden of Death Valley GirlsNext
  • Alejandro Canelos
  • September 20, 2022
  • 3:29 pm

The Dead Shakers: Some Shapes Reappear– Album Review

The Dead Shakers drop a new studio album on Sept. 23rd! After four years, Kevin Bloom and co. return with an innovative collection of psychedelic delights. 

“My Death” kicks off with a catchy instrumental riff in D-flat minor. At measure nine, the vocals enter on a key change, observing, “When you die / Nothing happens / Life continues / Without you.” Here also is the first taste of dissonance, courtesy of tritone intervals and hints of a whole tone scale. The form of this track—and of the entire album, which runs like a twelve-movement symphony—is hard to pin down, yet makes weirdly perfect sense in real time. Whenever I think I know what’s coming next, I’m roiled and relieved by a curve.

Take the up-tempo second track, “My Life.” The main theme, a four-bar phrase, grows a half-bar tail before repeating. A practical interlude appears once, then twice, before veering into a bridge that mutates upward with the assertion, “I didn’t ask to be born / Like a bad habit.” The word “habit” lingers over two bars of a brand-new key that’s diabolically only a half-step away from the final interlude. The track closes with a recap of the main theme, bringing to the fore an arpeggiating synth I suddenly realize has been there all along.

The beats per minute increase ever so slightly in “Compost is the Future,” a lively dance number marked by wailing synths and a down-home slide guitar. A modulating chorus features the words, “I will die eventually / My body should be composted.” The resulting tonality, like our corporeal forms, is short-lived.

“Take a Giant Step,” by G. Goffin and C. King, was originally recorded by the Monkees. While the Dead Shakers’ version is lower and slower, with deviations in the lyrics, harmony, and arrangement, it somehow manages to remain faithful to the composition. Flutes, twangy guitars, and a glockenspiel add color, while the bass and drums evoke the Stray Gators with their casual funkiness.

“Numbers” begins with a guided meditation over fragments of rhythm. When the drums go into double time under a barrage of cymbals, sonic beams swirl through and about a nucleus of G.

Nina Szenasi adds trance-like vocals to the center of the mix. At just the right moment, a xylophone leads a gradual disassembly back to the meditation. The adventure comes to a fitting end on the word “peace.”

The Dead Shakers perform live

The Dead Shakers photo by Ben Collins

A Motowney drum fill ushers in “Doing the Dishes.” After opening verses and a pre-chorus, a synth saxophone takes three passes at a plaintive tune, setting up the refrain, “We’re not doing the dishes this year.” I’m not sure what it means, but I know exactly how they feel. Next is the instrumental title track, “Some Shapes Reappear.”  I’m reminded of an original Nintendo Wii console and the sound of a life that must have been freer and more innocent than today’s.

The 6/8-meter “Fresh Baguettes” is harmonically reminiscent of the Goffin/King cover until another sly key change emerges at the bridge. This piece is a study in head-spinning overlays: attacks, decays, chorus, reverb. Then, in “All the Plants,” Kevin refocuses on the essentials, singing, “Where will you find the protein / Have you ever tried the plants.” Notwithstanding the angular chord progression, plucky sixteenth notes, and my own biases, the overall effect is enough to make me a believer.

Second to last, “Darkest Star” is like an anteroom to a grand hall. String players testing the rosin on their bows. A low acoustic piano note slicing through the fog. A root revealed. Faux croaking amphibians. Sporadic guitars. Synth sounds galore. Harp.

Remember those first two bars of D-flat on the opening track? Its components are reordered into odd-meter geniality on the finale, “Paine’s Celery Compound.” The song’s structure is vintage Bloom: five bars of seven plus one bar of eight not quite seven times before an abrupt change of key on the seventh bar of eight. Sound trippy? It is, and does. The vocals consist only of the song’s eponymous cure-all, a mixture of celery seed, alcohol, and pharmaceuticals. Approaching the end, the drummer showcases terrific 7/8 chops, playing in and around the 2-2-3 subdivisions with ease. As has been my experience throughout the record’s thirty-one glorious minutes, I’m off-balance and sated at the same time.

The Dead Shakers are singer/instrumentalist/composer/producer Kevin Bloom and band members Vincenzo Sicurella, Jeremy Mendicino, Zack James, and Brenden Provost. With special appearances by Nina Szenasi and others from the Burlington arts scene.

Kevin Bloom in Burlington, Vermont

Kevin Bloom photo by Ben Collins

The Dead Shakers Album Cover All Shapes Reappear

Gallery

Recent Articles

The Green Pajamas performing live

Interview: Jeff Kelly of The Green Pajamas

•
January 24, 2023
Aoxomoxoa album cover

The Psych Ward–Aoxomoxoa by the Grateful Dead

•
January 20, 2023
The tools of the Kambo practioner

Kambo: Medicine for the Soul

•
January 16, 2023
PrevPrevious“Suicide” Headaches
NextInterview: Bonnie Bloomgarden of Death Valley GirlsNext
Loading...
  • Interviews, Music

Interview: Jeff Kelly of The Green Pajamas

  • Emily Adair
  • January 24, 2023
  • No Comments
  • Column, Music

The Psych Ward–Aoxomoxoa by the Grateful Dead

  • Bill Kurzenberger
  • January 20, 2023
  • No Comments
  • Features

Kambo: Medicine for the Soul

  • Katie Moseley
  • January 16, 2023
  • No Comments
  • Column, Music, Reviews

The Psych Ward–Revolver by The Beatles

  • Rob Cavenagh
  • January 13, 2023
  • No Comments
  • Music, Reviews

Bhopal’s Flowers: Joy of the 4th–Album Review

  • Bill Kurzenberger
  • January 9, 2023
  • No Comments
  • Art

Artist Spotlight: Tim Maxwell

  • Jason LeValley
  • January 3, 2023
  • No Comments

video

Gallery

1 thought on “The Dead Shakers: Some Shapes Reappear– Album Review”

  1. Ercan Turfan
    September 25, 2022 at 9:44 am

    Wonderful music. Thanks to Kevin Bloom and the band members.

    Reply

Leave a Comment Cancel reply

Sign up for our Newsletter

Sign up for our mailing list to receive updates on trending stories, featured music articles, artist highlights and much more!

Contact Us

psychedelic Scene

Magazine

  • Home
  • About Us
  • Terms and Conditions
  • Contact Us
  • Art
  • Books
  • Music
  • Film
  • Interviews
  • Reviews
  • Lists
  • Features
Copyright @ 2023 All Rights Reserved Psychedelic Scene Magazine

Designed & Developed by: SYNC Digital Management

psychedelic Scene

Magazine