So Shush is a UK band that cites sixties pop and obscure indie as their influences. These influences shine through on the music they present on their sites.
Singer/songwriter Carole Smart has a faraway and dreamy vocal quality that is captivating and has an old world sound on certain tracks; she can also sound very straightforward and matter of fact on others. It is a nice duality. People Need Something has Smart repeating “people need somethin’ to go driftin’” and the track captures the floating ease of dreaming. Urban Sanctuary features some doubled harmony vocals that bring to mind the vocal interplay of the girls in the B-52s ala “Roam” and further highlights the dreamy quality of Smart’s voice. Clever 80s-sounding keyboard licks provided by songwriter/keyboardist/guitarist Ian Drumm ride over uncluttered instrumentation.
Hiway Flyaway starts off more grounded, with a prog rock organ, a 70s vibe and a catchy rhyming scheme that makes singing along inevitable. A flanged guitar solo with its requisite modulation mid-lead solidifies the old school prog rock sound. Antarctica returns to a dreamy soundscape, with the duo painting word pictures about the fate of our melting ice caps. A lovely melodic guitar lead and repeated arpeggios during the lead break are a perfect accompaniment to Smart’s voice. Lucid Dreamer rivals the best work of Emerson Lake and Palmer in its intro, jumping into the song full-throttle. It switches gears to a sound that brings to mind some Jefferson Airplane during the heyday of Haight-Ashbury. Brilliant use of vocal echo effects to highlight the lyrical content – when Smart singings about “flying above it all” she is bathed in echo, truly traveling above it all.
Listen to many more tracks on the band’s myspace here: http://www.myspace.com/soshush.
