Monotreme Records: Cerberus Shoal

Quaquaversal

\Qua`qua*ver"sal\, a. [L. quaqua wheresoever, whithersoever + versus, p. p. of vertere to turn.]

1. Turning or dipping in any or every direction.

2. (Geol.) Dipping toward all points of the compass round a center, as beds of lava round a crater.

3. Cerberus Shoal

Close your eyes tight, and open your ears and mind wide.

Cerberus Shoal are named after a sandbank off the coast of Massachusetts known for being calamitous to sailors, and if you’re not concentrating you’re going to run aground too. It’s going to be a hell - and a heaven - of a journey, relentlessly driving onwards, inwards and outwards; heedless of borders.

‘The Land We All Believe In’ is Cerberus Shoal’s eleventh album since their inception in 1994 in Boston, MA. Since then the band have mutated through innumerable lineup changes and a corresponding number of musical incarnations, from a comparatively straight-up, albeit unusually intense rock band, to a collective creating drawn-out exploratory transmissions. Today’s Cerberus Shoal are another beast again, singularly capable of convincingly creating another world within an hour of music, a world with touchstones to our own but so strange it might as well be formed along a different dimension. We’re used to singers singing in made-up tongues by now, but the sounds created by Chriss Sutherland (bass/vocals) on ‘Wyrm’, a controlled explosion of an old frustration in a newborn language, feel more fully-realised and viscerally, fallibly human than, say, Sigur Ros’ Hopelandic.

Cerberus Shoal live in Portland, Maine, a place which, whether it’s fair or not, is probably best-known for being where Stephen King chooses to set his stories. There must be something in the water, because their otherworldly atmospherics have something in common with King’s bleeding of the supernatural into the natural. Rather than fear, though, Cerberus Shoal’s channelling of the invisible gives rise to understanding and an odd kind of harmony.

There are seven of Cerberus Shoal, and five of them share “Tank 28”, the house which is also their rehearsal room and recording studio. This makes for a specific kind of closeness; an intuitive intertwining of ideas and sounds. They have a “writer/conceptualiser” in Karl Greenwald, but they also operate a blackball system (or “an ideal for new living”) wherein if any member of the band is not satisfied with a piece or any aspect of it, then it doesn’t get used. While this neatly avoids self-indulgence, in a less driven and creative group of people it could lead to an unhappy spartanism – not so. These compositions are dense, rich and layered, and worthy of being examined from every angle.

There’s a peculiar timelessness to ‘The Land We All Believe In’. All the sounds are warm, organic and familiar, yet played/put together in a way that’s like nothing you’ve heard before. ‘Wyrm’ is pinned down by accordion, but the way Colleen Kinsella plays it is jagged and confrontational, and the result sounds like old folk lurching down the years. The overt subject matter of ‘Pie for ze President’ roots it firmly in right now but its chaotic interludes, nightmarish bombast and helium vocals are disorientating, leaving you seasick and off-balance. Yet through the entire record there’s a sense of looking forward, of hope and the possibility of brightness even in the darkest moments, that propels it into the future. The darkest moment is probably ‘The Ghosts Are Greedy’ which comes on like a ghoulish puppet opera; the worst of all possible worlds. You’re in the waiting room of Dr Draino (think Dr Frankenstein after being locked in a Skinner box for ten years) while around you half-seen figures waltz and keen. The ominousness grows and the Dr stalks you through the shadows, beseeching you to “sing me a song that reeks of albumen and tunnel-sweat” as you hide in the heartbeating dark. It isn’t until you’re spun back into a world of bright, clean guitar lines and a curious sense of redemption that you realise you’ve been holding your breath for the last five minutes… The road may be treacherous, but hope does spring eternal, an idea reinforced by the album’s title together with the fact that they thank “the power elite (for making this a necessity)” in the sleevenotes. ‘Junior’ ends with a chorusing of “I want it in my hands by tomorrow/I want it in my hands by today”, and the intensity of hope and striving is tangible.

You are the eighth member of Cerberus Shoal. Karl Greenwald: "I think our music is very immediate, but you have to take part in it or you're not going to enjoy it. Even when I listen to it, I have to have 100% of my focus on that listening moment, or I don't like the experience." Immerse yourself in this record.

Give yourself up to ‘The Land We Believe In’.

CERBERUS SHOAL IS:

Chriss Sutherland
Caleb Mulkerin
Tom Rogers
Erin Davidson
Colleen Kinsella
Karl Greenwald
Tim Morin