Let me set a scene for you: it’s a lazy, rainy Sunday afternoon, and you’re on your fourth coffee of the day, yet you just can’t feel energized.

Your friends made plans with you in the evening, but you’re left with nothing to do in the afternoon. You look at your dusty record player and remember that old record store in your city that pretty much supplied you with your entire vinyl collection at a ridiculously cheap price. A smile stretches on your face as you grab your car keys and head on over there. You open the doors to the store as the smell of dust and old cardboard fills your senses, and you’re greeted by some fun-and-obscure punk song. That song was most likely Half Time Draw by The Shakamoto Investigation.

Immediately upon turning on the tune, I was instantly reminisced of the very-specific-yet-surely-accurate scene I just described. The fuzzy and dry guitars paired with a loud bass track instantly gave me that nostalgic record-store feel, and that was only amplified as the chaotic drums and distorted half-screamed vocals entered the soundscape. The song is defined in classic punk rock production tropes, such as the very minimalist mix, and is coupled with the kind of lack of structure that you would expect in your favorite punk tune. Despite the chaotic nature of the song, The Shakamoto Investigation is extremely clever in their self-awareness (all the more evident with the amazing and hilarious music video released alongside the single) and their skills at writing a genuinely fun and awesome track. The focus on flat-five harmony with its contrasting pep makes for such interesting sounds, despite sounding all so familiar. The bass is especially impressive in Half Time Draw, drawing a focus far more prominent than your average rock song. It supports the guitar’s melodies, all the while giving power to the beat and occasionally wandering in its own wacky direction just enough to give you a quick smirk as the bass returns back to track. It takes its liberties without ever sounding dissonant (or rather, bad, as dissonance is sometimes key in a killer punk song).

This isn’t the type of track I actively search for, yet stumbling upon it I found myself nodding in rhythm both throughout my study of the tune and upon having it on loop while writing this review. The Shakamoto Investigation did an awesome job both carrying on the legacy of record-store punk (as I like to call it) and engineering new ideas into an otherwise simple formula. 

Their new LP Existential Bread has just been released, containing the new single Half Time Draw, and it’s well worth a listen.

Author: Nicholas Gaudet

Music producer and writer from Dieppe, Canada.