Sheenjek Premiere “Unclever”; Debut LP out Aug. 28 on Seventh Rule
Posted in audiObelisk on August 18th, 2020 by JJ Koczan
West Coast noise has a long history of brash intensity, and Portland, Oregon’s Sheenjek would seem to be well aware of it. The four-piece is comprised of bassist/vocalist Dave Becker, guitarists Spencer Davis and Scott Flaster and drummer Joe Geist, and they’ll release their debut full-length, Unclever, through the venerable Seventh Rule Recordings at the end of next week. There are a few songs from the record available publicly already, among them the catchy highlights “Lazy Boy” and the uptempo “If Not Why Not If So How,” which would seem to be an indictment of the self-as-celebrity age of social media “stardom,” but as the eight-song/41-minute offering wrenches out heavy noise rock metered with sludgy tones, there’s a surrounding atmosphere that’s more than just bouncing-off-the-walls riffing or social disaffection.
That comes into play less on the four-minute opening title-track than the seven-and-a-half-minute “Monkey Brains,” which follows. Admittedly, the launch of Unclever is more about angularity, impact, and sheer physical push. Its starts and stops are precise enough but still loose in tone, the work of a band focused as much on groove as on technicality, it’s 90 seconds before they finally release some of the tension they build up, Davis and Flaster‘s guitars establishing a pattern of subtle variation in their play that will become a theme throughout the record. In tone and that particular spaciousness, I can’t help but be reminded a bit of Seattle’s Akimbo, but that’s only one of Sheenjek‘s touchstones across the release. “Monkey Brains” taps Black Flag sludge and laces it with samples and the Magazine cover “The Light Pours Out of Me” slows the pace ever so slightly from the 1978 original — Ministry also covered it on Animositisomina — to emphasize 
the weight underlying the post-punk vibe, and the steady snare hits there set up “If Not Why Not If So How” with a final stomp to round out side A in we-also-listened-to-hardcore-but-are-too-weird-for-it fashion.
“Lazy Boy” stands at the outset of the second half of the tracklist and is placed well there, executed with due spikiness of approach by a band who are sure they’re right in their defiance of genre standard. Grown-up West Coast post-hardcore meets sludge and heavy rock? Maybe, but the story doesn’t get any less complicated when “Oceans” taps metal and grunge as well as the already well established rhythmic insistence, and Sheenjek seem to save their most outwardly weighted tones for “Damocles.” Airiness in lead guitar lines speaks to a depth and reach of mix that stretches broader than it has up to then — suited to their style, they’ve brought plenty of crunch, but even the spaciousness shown has been pointed — but “Damocles” still sets its priorities in pummel and swagger. No complaints, as Unclever has long since proven such as a wheelhouse. It seems silly to think of 41 minutes as long for a record like this, but it kind of is these days. If, however, the difference would’ve been leaving off the five-minute finale “Bootlikker,” which not only broadens the scope of the release overall but also summarizes its punkish foundations, then the “extra” time taken to cross the 40-minute line is well worth it, opening sparse and moving into nodding crashes before the verse/chorus take hold, then returning to the crashes to finish out. It seems like simple enough changes on paper, but they do a lot of work in finishing Unclever with an uptick in atmospheric fashion.
The effect that has is to underscore the variety of influences under which Sheenjek are operating, putting it into a single track that, again, well earns its place as the closer. Back at the beginning of the LP, however, such concerns are a ways off, and that’s where “Unclever” itself brings us. The lead cut grunts and gnashes and has all its Pacific gnarl credits in order — and I don’t know, maybe four or five other words that start with ‘g’? — but especially taken in combination with the other tracks already out there, it gives a sense of that which unfolds across Unclever in a fashion that, if it needs to be said, runs in direct contrast to its own title.
Enjoy:
Dave Becker on “Unclever”: “Musically, ‘Unclever’ has a very linear feel so we wanted the same thing from the lyrics. I started writing and I had some fun with the template ‘all this ____ with no ____,’ so I put a bunch of those together and then built the song around them. It came out weird and abstract, which was exactly correct.”
Scott Flaster adds: “I was listening to a lot of Prong when I wrote this one.”
The band Sheenjek started as a simple book club, with wine and cheese and light banter about families and good books. This quickly dissolved, during the first meeting, into a demonstration, or clinic, of self-defense knife handling skills, and joint rolling technique. Booze, weed, books and punching each other, soon lead to a drum solo that lasted 9 nights and became the first ever live performance of the Sheenjek band.
The “unclever” path for the band took longer than expected as the band embarked on their venture of fitting in with other Portland bands with many left turns and constant room clearings. Not metal enough to play metal shows, not punk enough to play punk shows, and not “post” enough to win over any of those shows. Yet being the odd band out in any genre is never a bad thing and in the end the consciousness came. There was indeed no value in fitting in and the band turned up the volumes on their Hiwatts and Marshalls, and started to write the songs they wanted to write. Borrowing from the decades of riffs that had influenced them, Hooks that were ingrained in their DNA, whether they had originated from 80’s TV theme songs, Iommi scriptures, or Post Punk anthems.
“Unclever” will be released Digitally and Limited Edition Vinyl via Seventh Rule Recordings.
Preorder: https://sheenjek.bandcamp.com/album/unclever
Tracklisting:
1. Unclever
2. Monkey Brains
3. The Light Pours Out Of Me (originally by Magazine)
4. If Not Why Not If So How
5. Lazy Boy
6. Oceans
7. Damocles
8. Bootlikker
Joe Geist plays drums, Spencer Davis plays guitar, Scott Flaster plays guitar and Dave Becker plays bass and sings.
