Oliver Shaw Music 2024
A Beginners Guide To Dystopia
The last of the English cowboys strikes again – at the heart, and soul, of the matter and all things immaterial.
This Camden Town denizen has never been bent on disclosing redundant information about himself, preferring instead to speak about innermost feelings via music, yet the air of mystery suits Oliver Shaw just fine, and the Londoner’s third full-length platter is a great example of rightness, and righteousness, of his approach. Demonstrating steady progress in poetic lines and melodic twists over the course of five years that separate his debut and “A Beginners Guide To Dystopia” which sees him move on from the Lone Ranger image, the young artist’s songs become increasingly universal and, thus, more and more appealing. But, of course, there’s always an adventurous turn to keep the listener riveted.
Given the languid, deadpan even, vocal delivery of solemnly simmering opener “Truth Only Hurts The Liars” and “Ronald Ray Gun” that follows its shoegaze guitars and shimmery organ with a deliberately feeble attempt to introduce swagger, glamor and humor to the album’s flow, one would hardly expect the flaming, if not fervid, passion “Murder Of Most Hurried” brings forth so infectiously. The key to this emotional ambush may lie in the deliciously spaced-out funk of “Exoskeleton” that offers a desperate, albeit defiant, refrain to explain how Shaw’s aloof tunes protect the vulnerable core of his music from brute force and ignorance with which outsiders often access such records. Without understanding the need to guard soft spots, the hard-hearted will fail to assess superficially cynical ballads “Amelie” and “Sick” – whose acoustic resonance should flesh out the mournful mantras of, respectively, “We thought you was dead” and “I wanna die” – or introspectively plaintive, yet arrestingly sparkling, “Two And Two” that flaunts harmonies on both lyrical and aural levels.
However, while there’s the histrionic “Sexless Apprentice” to bare cold muscular grooves and “Hello Mr Postman” to ruffle up a few funereal riffs which will benefit cerebral minds, one doesn’t have to be too sentimental to embrace the intimate serenading of “Nevermind” that contrasts the folk-informed joviality of “Her Favourite Place” or to observe in awe the gorgeous soaring of the title track that picks up where “The Dark Side Of The Moon” left off. And of course, the dry “Last” that closes the platter in a troubadour manner won’t avoid shuffling some puns around to warrant a bittersweet wait for Oliver Shaw’s next endeavor. The endeavor to savor.
*****
