The snarling and abrasive
Iceage
that blasted punk out of the gates on their 2011 debut
New Brigade
was an entirely different band than the one that showed up with the swaying moodiness and nocturnal horn arrangements on
Plowing Into the Field of Love
just three years later. The band's evolution was fast and unusual, with huge leaps in style and sound from album to album pointing to creative restlessness and a strong drive to keep things from getting stale.
Shake the Feeling
tracks phases of
's evolution in the form of outtakes recorded during sessions for 2014's
, 2018's
Beyondless
, and 2021's
Seek Shelter
, but were left off of their respective albums for whatever reason. Though made up of seemingly unrelated segments,
seems at times like its own chapter in
's story. Rather than a chronological track order, the songs are arranged to flow like an album, and a haphazard one at that. Blasting and sloppy rockers like "Sociopath Boogie" bleed into two covers (a yelping rendition of
Abner Jay
's "My Mule" and an especially shambling and drunken take on the
Bob Dylan
-penned,
Nico
-perfected tune "I'll Keep It with Mine") before stumbling back into midtempo originals. "Broken Hours" is spare and angular, crackling with a
Birthday Party
-informed tension, and the overblown recording and farm-punk rhythm of "I'm Ready to Make a Baby" adds to the over the top atmosphere cultivated by the song's ridiculous lyrics. The depraved space gospel of "Lockdown Blues" includes lyrics that directly reference COVID-19 and quarantine, placing it a little bit firmly in time to really fit on an album, where the gentle flutes and mellow delivery of an acoustic version of
opener "Shelter Song" offer a lovely alternate perspective of the album version.
serves more as an annex for outcast ideas: Songs not quite too far gone to be discarded outright, but still just a little bit too removed from the greater statements of the albums they were considered for. It's a fascinating, disjointed listen, and one that illuminates a little bit of the process behind
's rapidly changing output. ~ Fred Thomas