The New Shapes
You’ve Got Me Running Round
When you think of punk, you think about some gritty expression of angst – whether it’s political, social, or just plain pissed off. When you hear the term ‘Modernist Punk’, it seems to take the angry edge off of things and adds a rounded, thoughtful, art-gallery-visiting twist on things.
However, what it means for The New Shapes is some radio friendly sounds emanating from crunchy guitars and layered vocal. ‘You’ve Got Me Running Round’ captures some of the guitar sounds of The Buzzcocks era and uses them on a mid-paced pop song that sounds almost typically like the kind of thing we’re getting from Franz Ferdinand et al.
Things pick up a fair bit for ‘A Song About A Girl’, which gets off to a start with a decent bit of guitar work. The drums switch from hi-hat to toms and the guitars play different chords, but essentially things are the same as the first track.
This isn’t a bad record really, it’s just not incredibly imaginative and merges all too easily with the fashionably retro bands currently gracing the pages of NME. With an almost complete lack of any interesting musical, vocal or structural elements to attract your attention The New Shapes have produced a record with nothing wrong except the songs. Radio One will love it.
Written by Fenton on
