The Shovel Dance Collective: The Shovel Dance
- sundayseasongs
- Oct 1, 2024
- 2 min read
First published in the October-November 2024 edition of Folk London Magazine
I am obsessed with the Shovel Dance Collective. The Water is the Shovel of the
Shore has been on regular rotation in my home since I stumbled across it in
2022, and I’ve been eager to sink my teeth into anything else the Collective and
its members would give me. The rich textures and found sound and almost manic
energy of Water is here in this new project, scaled up to something even more
sonically astounding. This is very much not to say that The Shovel Dance is an
improvement over Water - Water is a flawless piece of art as far as I’m
concerned - but rather more of a continuation. With The Shovel Dance there’s a
sense of a group coming into their own, taking an initial glorious chemistry and
blossoming it into something boundless and expansive.
Everything here is transfixing, and I could easily wax on about each track, but of
particular note for me was “The Gray Cock.” To say “it ripped the soul from my
body and was something of a religious experience on the third listen in particular”
is perhaps a bit dramatic, but it is honest and I stand by it. Nick Granata takes a
song that’s a bit sad, when you think about it and delivers it with such palpable,
dripping grief that you find yourself weeping in a heap on the bathroom floor (in my experience).
Their unaccompanied singing would be enough on its own to send any sane
person into the abyss over the course of these 8 minutes (this is a very positive
endorsement), but the rest of the Collective also has plenty to answer for here.
Every time you think the song has peaked - every time it’s given you just a
moment to catch your breath - it revs up again to a new high until it settles at last
into the dirge of a trombone and then just…ends. It is utterly devastating, and I
could not possibly love it more.
The Shovel Dance Collective is tremendous, full stop. They are my favorite band
on the scene right now, and The Shovel Dance has only cemented that.
The Shovel Dance releases 11 October and can be pre-ordered on Bandcamp:
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