Manchester’s Shade recently returned with their new single ‘Test of Time’ (Fear Records). Produced by Gavin Monaghan, the band has been going from strength to strength featuring on Mark Radcliffe’s Live From The Edge TV show. Can they keep their rock ‘n’ roll train chugging onwards?
Images courtesy of Anthony Jones
The haunting Cult-esque opening escalates quickly into another animal. The gear change is rapid, almost jarring but scintillating. Rock ‘n’ roll should be urgent and desperate which, this acceleration provides in abundance.
On ‘Jump Into Heaven’, they took a tumultuous love affair and made it sound like a stadium anthem. With their fingernails in the dirt, they battle the relationships darkness with unbridled defiance:
“We won’t leave / Rely on one another / Forever we will climb”
There is a raw power on these last two singles akin to the fire of a ‘Acquiesce’ or ‘Motown Junk’. They strain every sinew to be heard and, via their everyman dreams and tales of clinging on, soon they will be.
It’s inevitable.