Tuesday, June 28, 2011

The Shivers Offer New Album for Free via The Awl! Playing Glasslands in NYC Tomorrow



"Keith Zarriello's voice carries an eerie, mesmerizing eroticism." – Pitchfork

"…one of our favorite songs of all time.” – Gorilla Vs Bear

Leading into the band’s homecoming, CD release show at Glasslands in Brooklyn, NY on 6/29 and in honor of the beginning of summer and summerlove, New York cult-favorites The Shivers have made their latest album, More, which is out via Silence Breaks, available as a free download over at The Awl.

The site has praised the Queens, NY natives, writing in a recent profile that that lead singer Keith Zarriello “writes stuff almost no one writes well anymore: dense, intelligent three- and four-minute rock songs that feel vital and necessary. He is, no bullshit, one of the best songwriters working today.” Click HERE to download a free copy of the album, and listen to the band’s latest single, “Love Is In The Air” HERE.

For The Shivers, More was a liberating labor of love reflecting influences from rock ‘n’ roll, rhythm and blues, folk, and everything in between. Using every dime they'd saved, Zarriello and Schornikow traveled to Manchester in the Spring of 2010 to record their latest record in an entirely analog studio. Over five days, the two worked tirelessly, capturing the tracks they had worked on in the small church in Queens where the band practices. The end result was More, an album that runs the gamut of American rock ’n’ roll, delving into everything from gritty Lou-Reed-inspired rock to the swaggering soul of Nina Simone. Starting with the brief piano elegy “My Mouth Is For My Love,” More segues quickly into “Irrational Love,” a bouncy organ-driven rock track with a chorus that sounds like it was plucked from 1966. The album teeters between the upbeat pop of tracks like “Used to Be” and “I Want You Back” to the heartsick, Leonard-Cohen-inspired ballads like “Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars” and “Love Is In The Air.” The album closes with the record’s title track “More,” a slow-building confessional that serves the record’s triumphant last call. It’s an apt end for a record that sounds like an apologetic love note, written on barroom cocktail napkin.

Hailing from Queens, NY, Keith Zarriello began writing music as The Shivers started back in 2001 and has spent the last ten years mining the depths of American music, developing a songwriting style that ranges from earnest, heartbroken ballads to ’60s garage rock revival. In 2004, Zarrellio released Charades, which featured the much lauded track “Beauty,” which earned universal praise from the likes of Pitchfork and The Guardian, and would end up being named Gorilla Vs Bear’s thirteenth best song of the decade. The album also caught the ear of an Australian, classically-trained church organist named Jo Schornikow, who joined the band as a full-time member that year. With Schornikow adding a delicate counterpoint with her piano and keyboard flutters, The Shivers spent the next six years touring aggressively in the U.S. and the U.K., and releasing a grand total of four albums, leading up to the ultimate release of More this year.

The Shivers NYC Tour Dates:
06/29: Brooklyn, NY @ Glasslands (Album Release Show)
07/09: Brooklyn, NY @ Seedstock: Eagle St. Rooftop Farm Benefit

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