Shrag - Life! Death! Pizes!

Very limited pressing of the Shrag album. Copies are here now so we can ship. Currently Artrockers album of the month. SHRAG are "bringing analytical attitude to the debased trade of pop and serving it up with bulldozing portions of raw guitar noise" MARVELLOUS With an exhilarating blend of dirty, distorted post-punk guitars, shouty boy/girl vocals and fantastic pop songs, Shrag bring us a distinctively British experience, drawing inspiration from the likes of The Au Pairs, B-52s and Prolapse. Whilst their songs have a certain melodic bounce, this belies a darker underbelly, with a wry intelligence, and references to surrealist film, literature and pop culture. Shrag have built an exciting live reputation and a devoted following, previewing the new songs from the forthcoming album for a number of months and building huge anticipation for Life! Death! Prizes! amongst their loyal fans. Songs such as Ghosts Before Breakfast and The Habit Creep are amongst the live highlights. The band have toured the UK twice with The Cribs, and last year with The Pains of Being Pure at Heart. They also toured Europe in December 2009 and played London Popfest in February 2010. Further festival appearances will precede a headline UK tour later in the year. Their debut self-titled debut album was released in 2009, a compilation of the five 7" singles they had so far released. Fresh from his success with Love Is All and Comet Gain, legendary producer (and Morrissey drummer) Woodie Taylor, offered to mix the bands recordings. The album, released in the UK and licensed to Japanese label Knew Noise Recordings, was met with critical acclaim from, amongst others, Uncut, Pitchfork, the Sunday Times, and Artrocker, who asserted the album demonstrated that "their fiery intelligence is uniquely threatening in a world dominated by dullsville NME bands; there's more of a sense of danger when Shrag go to the bathroom than there is in the entire mephitic stench of indie’s decaying corpse." The upcoming album Life! Death! Prizes!, once again mixed by Woodie Taylor, is considered by the band to be their first album proper, with a progression both musically and lyrically that will bring their unconventional sounds to new receptive ears. The first single to be released from it, Rabbit Kids, received numerous plays on BBC 6Music, where the band have also played multiple live sessions with Marc Riley. The song was chosen by Stuart Maconie and Mark Radcliffe to compete as a Single of the Week on their BBC Radio 2 show, and also caught the attention of hugely influential US site Pitchfork, who described Shrag as “one of those bands whose tunes and natural charisma could easily endear them to a wider audience, but whom the vagaries of record release dates, hype cycles, and airline prices have so far conspired to keep a well-loved secret”. This won’t be the case for too much longer, as Shrag have now been invited to play New York’s 2010 CMJ Music Marathon. Shrag are Andy Pyne: Drums, Bob Brown: Guitar & Vox, Helen King: Vox & Keys, Russell Warrior: Bass and Stephanie Goodman: Keys & Vox “Brighton's boy-girl scuzzpoppers Shrag flash back to the heyday of such personages as The Mekons or The Raincoats, bringing analytical attitude to the debased trade of pop and serving it up with bulldozing portions of raw guitar noise.” Uncut

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