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The old five-point scale has been retired in favor of just rating stuff 1-10, which allows me a much more nuanced final rating. Still don't take it that seriously. Most of these come from my own collection, so the grades skew rather high. Your results may vary if you send me stuff to review.

Each album is given three Essential tracks, my personal favorites, regardless of how weird and inconsequential they are. The Quintessential pick is the one I think best represents the album as a whole, so you can try one song instead of a whole album of songs. Non-Essential picks range from merely disappointing to outright unlistenable.

Shaimus

[#] Shaimus (2012)

Reviewed July 28, 2024

Tasteful music for a rainy bus stop.

Guitar Hero and Rock Band veterans Shaimus seem to be over the silly stuff on their third and currently final self-titled outing. This is a small monolith of glassy, onyx-black pop rock, often slow tempos and pianos and themes of leaving, unfilfilled relationships, and teenage funerals (that do somehow lead to love). Really, this album had big shoes to fill the moment the bassline of the opener "Shadows" slunk its way out of my speakers. This song is beastly. It grooves, it has the single best chorus on the entire album, it's lyrically simple and yet striking ("But if I stop/To close my eyes/I'll sleep into my own demise/And never know/All the things that I have"), and it's without a doubt the best song you didn't hear on the radio of 2012. How can the other nine songs compete?

Admittedly, there's really not a bad song here. Shaimus are expert craftsmen, and each song is measured, structured intelligently, well performed, and even featuring hooks all their own, if not ones as strong as "Shadows". These guys were definitely keen to what was going on with their peers: you'll catch a strong whiff of Coldplay's everlasting balladry on "Back to One", and "Means to an End" turns Radiohead's "Weird Fishes/Arpeggi" into a foggy, churning three minute bout of pop. The one thing it's missing is thumbprints. Ironically, this is executed with such a deft touch, the lyrics so general, that Shaimus don't seem all that affected by their own sadness, and it winds up a little impenetrable and unengaging as a result. Like the aforementioned chunk of chalcedony, it sure is purdy--but most of what you'll see in it is what you project onto it.

(Shoutout to dotcomboom. For the suggestion, but also, in general.)

Essential:	Quintessential:	Non-Essential:	Rating:
"Shadows", "Means to an End", "Red Eyes"	"I'm Gone"	"Only One"

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