The American two piece Two Knights surpass everything you are expecting of them with ‘Shut Up‘: an album built upon expansive talent, emotion and raw honest energy. The album lays itself bare, deconstructing music to ‘Shut Up’s exposed arts. Opener ‘If It’s Brocken, It’s Brocken’ is coarse, short with all the intricate hooks you could ask for. These clear riffs oppose Parker Lawson’s dynamics of the vocals into a whir of rasping emotion. As ‘It Doesn’t Matter Matt, I’m Never Going To Cast Boulderfall’ continues this juxtaposition into upbeat patterns and shrieks. Two Knights blowing up in unnerving and unpredictable spouts.
As Two Knights recoil into aggressive vocals that feed into lunacy inducing intricate instrumentals with their fourth track ‘Clark Can’t’ it is clear how the pair complement each other, in writing and recording. ‘Symphony For The Righteous Destruction Of Humanity’ then breaks out hearts in empathy declining into the final lyrics ‘where you’d fall in love with me, and we’d make each other happy.’ The track is one of the most memorable one, almost telling the story of the lyrics in the wild inclinationof screeching vocals. Sounds that twoed and froed from each other have now built into layers of wild revultion of real emotion in its downturn. ‘Dear God, This Parachute Is A Knapsack’ rips into disjointed melodies and sweeps us up into a winding intricate madness from Two Knights’ ability to sculpt sound in short blasts of hysteria.
Yet with tracks like ‘Divine Secrets Of The Ya-Ya Sisterhood Of The Travelling Pants’ we find a moment of self doubt and critique, ‘I’ll never mean as much to you as you do to me’ resonating through sweet bursts and beats before ‘Leave My Body in Milwaukee’ ramps up as the most intriguing track from ‘Shut Up’. From raw nerve endings to delicate melodies ‘Leave My Body In Milwaukee’ riles in musical hooks as the track takes a calmer step, a testament to Two Knights in their ability to reveal emotion in more than one cathartic structure. Closer ‘Major Leage Bullshit‘ finds its way through a stunning introduction into a final open and honest offering.
This album will find you in a certain mood and drag you out from the corner it found you in. When you find yourself lost, even upon a first listen you find solace in its raw honest ability to reflect pain, as if every emotion was yours. Despite ‘Shut Up’ feeling at home in your collection it still challenges conventions as it deconstructs everything we have come to expect in music and structure. Its rampant ability to scale up and abruptly stop continually captivates with how striking simplistic can be.
