Chosen by Monk
My latest choice cut is the first new music in almost a quarter of century from this New York hardcore combo who are showing no sign of shutting down but instead picking up where they left off at the turn of the millennium with this title track from their new EP, due to land in January:
Originally formed in Brooklyn in 1994, Shutdown released a handful of EPs and singles, and two albums, before going on what turned out to be an indefinite hiatus in 2000, as guitarist Steve Della Croce explained:
We never officially broke up. We needed to stop touring, and we started doing a few other things. We all tried to play when we could, but it wasn’t consistent. A couple of us had side projects going so we could keep playing, and we would write some Shutdown songs once in a while, but we realized we needed a plan of what we wanted to do and what the band should sound like. We’ve talked a lot over the past couple of years about how we’ve evolved and grown as musicians and songwriters, and we wanted everyone to hear what we were talking about.
Speaking about their “comeback” EP, Della Croce emphasizes the sense of optimism, familiarity and community spirit that lies at the heart of the band:
Positivity is just how we roll, because it helped us when we were angry teenagers. To this day, when we write songs, we write them for us and whoever likes it likes it, but obviously it speaks to a lot of people and it’s helped us survive this long as humans. So it was essential to keep that message going with this EP.
- ‘By Your Side‘ will be released via Equal Vision Records on 17 January.