It’s difficult to write love letters to the one you love. It’s even more difficult to write love letters to everyone you love in your life (some of whom you may not have met yet) and not have it come off as cornball shit, but as a personal, collective expression. Shellshag’s components are two great folks: Shell and Shag. Ancient black and white symbols, peanut butter cups, dots and dashes—they all become whole from slightly disparate, complementary components; they grow in meaning from context. Shellshag are also brilliant—in the bright, shining, colorful sense. Too much of one ingredient and, it’d be schmaltz or over-saturating blindness. Bells strapped to other legs could be a problem— inauthentic, gimmicky. But what you get on Forever are two independent musicians playing beautiful music to one another, and by extension, anyone else who’s willing to listen. When people say “indie rock,” this is what I wish they were talking about. Shellshag. Adventurous art without pretence, welcoming, oozing with fun, played with candor, grit, and amplification.
–todd (Don Giovanni)