Shield Your Eyes‘ Stef Ketteringham is, I’m pretty sure, the best guitarist in the country. He is certainly amongst the most adventurous, having all but invented an entirely new way of playing – half doleful finger-picking, half furiously distorted slide.
‘Larkspur’ is taken from the band’s forthcoming Volume 4, and sees Ketteringham in characteristically shizophrenic form – oscillating between screeching and warmth. At some points it approaches lighters-in-the-air trad rock (but much, much better than that sounds); at others it is buried in warped harmonics and time signature changes. The track is also fuller, more rounded than Shield Your Eyes’ previous output – helped in great part by vastly improved production.
Volume 4 is out next week. Shield Your Eyes play Ryan’s Bar in Stoke Newington on 18 October.
larkspur (volume 4) by shield your eyes
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