The dreamy qualities of Shepherds’ recent single “Reverie” failed to prepare us for the pummeling force of their debut LP, Exit Youth. Coated in a thick, sopping layer of static, the new record is a musical maze which propels the listener down jagged hallways of catharsis and absurdity. When Shepherds appear to reach a dead end, they power through it, revealing solid walls to be only misty curtains of musical preconception, ripe to be torn away.
No song on the album represents the whole. Instead, each track occupies a completely different facet carved out by Jonathan Merenivitch’s understated guitar, Peter Cauthorn’s insistent bass and Adrian Switon’s deceptively simple drumming. Exit Youth is Merenivitch’s brainchild, an idea which germinated during a three-year period during which he played with Del Venicci and Janelle Monae, but the unerring musicality of the trio is also due to Cauthorn’s and Switon’s experience in Mood Rings and Bataille, respectively. READ MORE…