Released: 6 August 2018
Label: Fuzzkill
The Glasgow trio’s latest EP Eat Your Enemy is a gallant and galvanic garage-punk goliath
To distil Shredd’s latest release down to a word: colossal. The Glaswegian garage rock fiends retain their existing arsenal for their second EP, Eat Your Enemy, but add the blunt bludgeons of punk in their conquest of new territory.
A tonal coherence is present across the four tracks, providing solid evidence that the trio have begun focussing their sound. Each cut exists as its own brutish character, but together they form a tight pack bound by fired vocals and a relentlessly feral energy. The recording’s polish assists greatly with this fresh unity of theirs, however, they still manage to maintain their lo-fi allegiance.
Its entirety has the essence of unfurling live, providing a window (more so a frame with a shattered pane) into the volcanic mania of their gigs. Chris Harvie’s galvanic guitar on What’s This I See? makes Thor’s hammer look limp. In My Head’s gothic intro, percussive annihilation and buzzing bass is the kind of sonic catalyst capable of waking the Kraken.
Joyously apparent is the band’s clear-as-day path of evolution. Their established sound and bearing are still there, but it is their additions and refinement to this that makes for such a thrilling advance. The indestructible foundations they laid in 2017 have been built upon here to a great height; if they stay true to their blueprints the structure will continue skyward to sovereignty over the land.