The Shed - Artist Overview

Hear The Track Here

Regular readers will know that I DO like a lot of stuff I hear but it takes a rare event to get me really throwin' me toys out of me pram and when I reviewed The Shed's 'The Parson, The Pauper etfekkincetra' (April 2006) I gotta to admit to even foaming at the mouth. Right now, The Shed look like having a terrific year because right behind this classic track comes a shedload more, if you'll forgive the excruiating pun. If you don't forgive it then f*** ya. I had already downloaded and consumed vast quantities of Hole Puncher by the time one of the band (millions of them, I tell ya) managed to scrawl their name on the monthly quota, and had already determined I was going to write a much larger overview so I guess we'd better get on with it.

Hole Puncher first methinks....

A different take from my introduction to the band, Hole Puncher is a fine slice of acoustic rock with a sparkling vocal that'll rip your heart out and eat it in front of your eyes. Where the unique quality of The Parson ensured it would receive a favourable reaction, Hole Puncher had no such retreat, it either stands or falls. As it happens it expands my feeling that The Shed are destined for much, much bigger things. Where The Pauper is instant feelgood, Hole Puncher is warming, enlightening and beautifully performed in every aspect but ESPECIALLY the vocal which is...brrrrr...words fail me. An authentic rock original, with some of the sweetest vocal tones you will ever hear, Hole Puncher captured me instantly but in a very different way to The Pauper. I suspect it will assume much greater proportions than Pauper because it is the greater of the two tracks in my opinion and I've only heard it gazillions of times already. Again, I may have some quibbles about this and that in the mix, but it's just another opinion. When it works, it works like billyo.... (whoever he was)

Bouyed up by the obvious strengths of the songwriting, production and performance talents on display here in just 2 tracks, I HAD to dib me fingers in some more. All Moist A Bad Party is again a different take on what The Shed do best: write powerfully structured, beautifully rendered music. If that were all, it would be enough but then they deliver the killing blow which is always superb vocals and lyrics most of us would mug our grannies to write. A very Beatle-ish feel to this track that I find particularly satisfying. I have yet to see a written Shed lyric but they are so easy to pick up (thanks in part to the excellent vocalist(s)) it hardly seems to matter. Speaking of which, I BET that you cannot listen to the first verse of The Shed without wetting yourself laughing. Obviously being of the 'less is more' school of lyric writers, The Shed are masters at tweaking the most out of every nuance, building the vocal no less than the musical accompaniment. Unarguably the brightest spark of the year so far The Shed are - as a man once said - the bollocks. Even, as another man once said, the dogs bollocks. The small ripples they have created so far are nothing to what is about to engulf us....Shedmania!!!

Forget the hoodies, here come the Sheddies!!