Posts Tagged ‘The Shits’

The Shits – Diet of Worms

Posted: 18 March 2026 in Albums, Reviews
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Rocket Recordings – 3rd April 2026

Christopher Nosnibor

Opening an album with an ear-splitting shriek of feedback is a statement of intent, and a challenge to the (potential) listener. Opening an album with an ear-splitting shriek of feedback by way of launching into a seven-minute discordant racket is special, particularly when you’re not Sunn O))). It takes some confidence, and is an immediate ‘fuck you’ to anyone who might be looking for some melody. But then, it’s fair enough. You’re not going to be looking to attract pop kids when you’re a noise rock band called The Shits. But over the course of its seven minutes, raw and ragged opener ‘In A Hell’ brings a nagging lead guitar line which stretches back and forth over a repetitive riff where the rhythm guitar follows the bass on an ascending riff through an ever-amassing wall of noise. Woah. In a way, I’m reminded of The Fall, specifically Hex Enduction Hour, crashing in with ‘The Classical’, which is absolutely all over the shop, discordant, swerving here, there, and everywhere, likely deterring many from venturing further, while encapsulating everything about the band and the album in that opening salvo. So if ‘In A Hell’ doesn’t do it for you, leave now, and promptly, because you’re only going to get more of the same, only more so. ‘In A Hell’ is a beast, and will likely send many running ion the opposite direction. Fine. It’s their loss.

You know an album’s going to be good when the opening track sounds like the finale. And yes, with Diet of Worms, The Shits deliver something extraordinary. It’s a filthy mess of overdriven guitar and vocals thick with phlegm and fury, and it’s nothing short of magnificent.

‘Tarrare’ brings the searing proto-punk three chord thrash and wah-wah frenzy of The Stooges with the rabid nastiness of The Anti-Nowhere League and a hint of the derangement of the Jesus Lizard, and ‘Then You’re Dead’ piles straight in with more gritty riff-driven nihilism delivered with fervour and everything cranked up to eleven.

There’s nothing pretty about this. There’s nothing especially new about it, either, but The Shits play with a rare, raw energy, and it’s this which makes Diet of Worms stands out. ‘Change My Ways’ is a sneering roar, with hints of Uniform but very much indebted to Public Image. It’s a punky, noise-rock juggernaut. Single cut ‘Thank You For Being a Friend’ doesn’t exactly seem to radiate effusive gratitude in its delivery and lands more like being punched in the gut. Repeatedly. For nearly six minutes.

AA

AA

The whole album is a sprawling, dingy, full-on, the songs built around simple, repetitive riffs bludgeoned away at for however long – nothing fancy, just fire and fury. Diet of Worms is unapologetic in its bluntness, attacking from the first scream of feedback to the final afterburn.

AA

AA

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Shrimp – Shrimp

Posted: 3 January 2019 in Albums
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Panurus Productions – 25th January 2019

Is it a supergroup if the members of a collective all belong to acts no-one has ever heard of? Shrimp is a project which represents the coming together of Jon O’Neill (The Smokin’ Coconuts, The Shits, Skronk et al), Chris Watson (Snakes Don’t Belong in Alaska, Forest Mourning), James Watts (Plague Rider, Lovely Wife, Lump Hammer et al),Rob Woodcock (Plate Maker, Fret!) and Ryosuke Kiyasu (Sete Star Sept, Fushitsusha, Kiyasu Orchestra et al). Initially converging to perform on the bill at a Ryosuke solo show in Gateshead, this eponymous release captures the intensity of that performance in a studio setting – at least, so they claim.

Listening to this, it’s probably a claim that’s justified: it is, indeed, intense. They promise ‘a maelstrom of clanging, shrieking guitar, relentless frenetic drum savagery and inhuman vocals’, and forewarn that ‘Shrimp, in direct contrast to the weakness implied by its moniker, is the sonic equivalent of being trapped within a chitinous storm of pincers and consists of a thirty minute studio onslaught and a live recording, featuring additional electronic noise.’

Yep. It’s brutal and harsh from the outset. A cacophony of guitar feedback and whiplash explosions of extraneous noise whirl into a tempestuous frenzy around smashing percussion. The first five minutes sound like the climactic finale of something immense. And it just keeps on going from there. On and on, notes and beats and crashing cymbals flying in all directions, slowly bringing things down only to resurge and burst into a raging sonic storm once more. Deranged shrieks lie half-buried in the mix amidst all kinds of chaos that combines stoned desert rock, psychedelia and free jazz.

Twenty-two minutes in and the speakers are melting with a blistering stream of frenetic noise, formless, atonal, punishing in its complete lack of shape or musicality. After half an hour it bleeds into second piece, ‘Light as Hell’. It’s more of the same – an ear-bleeding aural tidal wave that continuously threatens to break but never does. It’s dizzying, and difficult. And yet, supergroup or not, it is definitely super, in a wild, chaotic, insane way.

Shrimp