Spectreview: Shamir – Shamir

Released: October 2, 2020

Indie Pop/Rock

-LIGHT GREEN-

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Success can feel at times like a machine suddenly hooked up to your veins, giving and taking life like a parasite. To many, it’s a point of no return. Shamir Bailey achieved enough of a degree of success in 2015 with the release of his debut record on XL, Ratchet, to capture the attention of a portion of the listening world. Everything that’s happened afterward – his drop from XL, his four-track followup Hope, the freewheeling homegrown projects he’s released since – have all passed through the looming shadow of that debut.

To people who require their music tastemaker-recommended, Shamir squandered any fleeting relevance he might have achieved with his debut. But those with a sense of perspective that goes beyond consumer habits see things differently; they see an artist with a confident vision and the courage to push through any circumstances to enact it. In that sense, record like Revelations and Cataclysm aren’t quizzical asides from a dance-music wünderkind; they’re uncomplicated, non-presumptuous works that are free from any sense of expectation. Shamir has become an artist’s artist: someone devoted to providing honest creative expression and not to some fleeting sense of iconicity.

The path Shamir’s taken, ironically, is itself actively turning him into somewhat of an icon. That path hits a critical point in his new self-titled record, which seems at last to cement his redefinition as a mercurial, fringe-based pop adept. In eleven tracks (three of which are brief moments of genial candidness) Shamir races through dream pop, dance pop, country, shoegaze, and string-laden melodrama with a madcap energy. At a scant thirty minutes, it passes by at a breezy pace, and with effusive opener “On My Own” it wastes no time getting to the good stuff. 

The rest of the record runs in a similar caliber to that track’s bounce, with Shamir’s signature countertenor and sugary thin production remaining the defining elements of his songs. Notable peaks emerge in the dusty shuffle of “Other Side,” the pulse-quickening “Pretty When Im Sad” and the hazy pop of “Running”, but it’s the record’s overall consistency that leaves the biggest impact. Even the moments when Shamir dips in energy, most near the end of the record, still feel imbued with a renewed energy and a sense of purpose. This is especially true in its closing track, the legato-laden “In This Hole,” which feels akin to a Vulnicura cut. Five years into his visible career, Shamir’s still following wherever his interest leads him, and lucky for us it’s resulted in one of his best, most efforts yet.

Recommended for flying your freak flag.