Album Notes

It's been a few years since the world has heard from Seana Carmody. She was known as the sweet vocal center of the experimental noise-pop Swirlies in their early '90s heyday on the Taang! label. Seana led that band to their place as the pre-eminent American purveyor of the Shoegazer sound from that mini-era. In the mid-'90s she founded Syrup USA, and her songwriting blossomed in the realm of that band's keyboard and synth-heavy pop sensibility. Their jingle-jangle fantasy-rock found its perfect expression on the Flydaddy Records release All Over the Land. That vehicle disbanded in 1998. In the four years since Seana took a break from band life but continued writing songs. Now Seana re-enters your rock universe in a big way with her dazzling solo album Struts & Shocks.

Struts & Shocks is fully representative of where Seana has been in her musical career and who she is now. It's rich and multi-faceted, one minute reposing in the gentle land of dream-pop and the next busily ripping into noise strata via tangles of roughhewn guitar. There is a canniness of craft in these songs, so fully realized despite their mostly economical 2-3 minutes in length. Yet when Seana does choose to stretch out into space rock territory, she does it with the aplomb of a seasoned traveller. And traversing the changing musical dimensions is that voice, sounding alternately naive and seductive, but always steadfast, sure, and lovely. Assisted by Orrin Anderson from former band Syrup USA and Adam Brilla from Lockgroove, Seana Carmody makes all the right moves on Struts & Shocks.