Album Review – Shaking and Moving by The Fours (2022) (World Of Birds Records)
After a seven-year hiatus since his Weekly Elbows debut album, this Columbus-based act suddenly emerged with the Misadventure album (September 2022) and this Shaking and Moving release in the space of a mere three months, suggesting that the time The Fours spent silent was not wasted.
Stylistically more dank, dense, and chiming than its debut, this album succeeds amid two definitive nuances. Initially, tracks such as Kicking Dust, Faces, It’s A Lie, and Parliament offer an enthralling mix of Buzzcocks-style whirr, 70s and 80s power-pop, and a Business of Dreams fuzz-laden modernity. It is a juxtaposition that seems so very appropriate but works courtesy of the rich vocal delivery, which glosses over any possible seams.
However, the very best of the release is best represented by Lately (spoiler alert: this will be my single of 2022), Pound for Pound, Wind Farm, and The Cracks. The tinny, fractured riffs of The Groove Farm’s late 1980s sound pierce the retro production and chiming Flowertown style jangly post-punk riffs here, revealing this act’s potential to sit at the same table as other recent alt. jangle-pop giants.
Enigmatic to a precise sheen with no mention of names in the non-existent band biographies and with no social media presence, somehow this all just adds to the allure of this superb act.
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