The Shivers

The Shivers album, Charades was released in 2004 and it’s highly addicting. Again, I am obviously not the first to hear about this band, but I promised to talk write about them and will do just that. If it’s not already obvious, I like pretty chill music. Don’t get me wrong, I like my upbeat stuff, too, but you know where my bias lies. That’s probably the number one reason I like Charades: It’s mainly a voice and a guitar. In fact, if you can play a guitar and sing decently, I’ll probably listen to your music. This is not meant to minimize the efforts of The Shivers, rather it’s quite the opposite. To me, simplistic musical presentation in a music world filled with Justin Timberlake’s (who I actually like) and Christina Aguilara’s (who I don’t like) that allow me to appreciate bands like The Shivers all the more. Furthermore, for all this talk about minimalism, Charades is surprisingly diverse. While acoustic based, it definitely features other musical elements that create variety throughout the album; some tracks are instrumentals while a couple others stop and change in the middle of the song. “Beauty” truly is a beautiful track, and my favorite.