Details Elephant Shell

Elephant Shell lands roughly a year and half after A Lesson In Crime and barely three years on from the band’s 2005 formation.   The EP would be lauded by Rolling Stone (“If only all young guitar bands were smart enough to rock out this fast”); The Guardian (“Short sharp bursts of nonchalant arrogance. Thrilling”); NME (“The most perfect, weirdly askew band the other side of the pond has produced since Pavement”). It would go on to sell over 50,000 copies – probably about 49,000 more than the band were expecting.  Not bad for four kids who self taught during senior year at high school.

Whereas vocalist David Monks, lead singer/bassist, described A Lesson in Crime at the time of release as “wide-eyed post-punk with a tendency to get over excited”, keyboardist Graham Wright insists that Elephant Shell provides” that nostalgic feeling, the feeling of falling in love with girls and with music and with life.” Elephant Shell is built on the same rapid-fire foundations but is now built high with corridors of soaring sonic invention. The album delivers on every bit of promise of A Lesson in Crime. The opening one-two rapid-fire salvo of “Centennial” and “In A Cave” barely evaporates before “Graves” and “Juno” pack innumerable hooks and “what-does-that-remind-me-of” glimmers into taut 2-minute-and-change frameworks, while “Tessellate” and “Sixties Remake” encapsulate everything great about the manic TPC live experience:  soaring guitar signatures and keyboard figures, driving backbeats and irresistible sing-along’s abound. Elsewhere, “The Harrowing Adventures Of…” and the dubbed out standout “Listen To The Math” find our young protagonists stretching out, hinting at a new-found maturity and ably adapting their energy into more subdued structures before the rousing coda of “The Baskervilles” brings the record to a shuddering halt.