Shopping

The London trio Shopping makes tight, bright, danceable post-punk that owes much to forebears like A Certain Ratio, Mo-Dettes, and Lucrate Milk, though it never sounds particularly dated or like a carbon-copy, a testament to the group's songwriting abilities. Their debut, Consumer Complaints, was one of the best punk records of 2013 when it was released by the group's DIY label M?lk Records in November of that year. (Here it sees a U.S. release courtesy of larger longtime UK indie label Fat Cat Records.)

All three members previously played together in the underrated group Covergirl, and all three sing here, though guitarist Rachel Aggs (also of Trash Kit, Golden Grrrls, and scores of other bands) takes lead on most of Shopping’s songs. Overlapping and circling vocal patterns are played to excellent effect, so that the vocals seem less like something that sit on top of the music, and more part of an integrated whole.

Aggs’ trademark guitar style leans on broken and manipulated '60s-style garage riffs—in style and tone, in this band and others, her guitar work is often reminiscent of a less straightforward Holly Golightly/Headcoatees. This is one of the elements that keeps Consumer Complaints’ songs from blurring into one another, though they rarely vary in tempo. All of the songs also have their own structures: there's no verse-chorus-verse or predictable bridge insertion; instead, songs are structured to breathe, blurring into noise where necessary ("Santa Monica Place") or stretching out melodic themes to disco ends ("Get Going"). As a result, no track seems too short or too long; one gets the sense that the songs have been structured only to start where they need to and then were allowed to grow organically into their recorded forms through repeated practice and performance.

The politics on Consumer Complaints are refreshingly more embodied than didactic, mixing blunt statements about the alienation and immediacy necessary to queer desires under capitalism without preaching or feeling heavy-handed. Drummer Andrew Milk has said that Shopping "never discussed having a particular political message at all as a band." This may be yet another reason why Consumer Complaints bubbles with joy without being explicitly joyful and why this collection of songs never feels artificial or forced.

There is no cool plastic sheen meant to signify the post-industrial age over this record, and Shopping’s music doesn’t feel consistently grinding or harsh, though they don’t shy away from dissonance or from breaking melodic motifs. These are warm, human songs, songs that celebrate real power in making the music you want to with your friends on your own terms, songs that celebrate the multifaceted natures of people struggling to make themselves heard via relatively antiquated technology in a sped-up world where human interaction is often mediated through digital simulacra.