Today being Remembrance Day, I have been trying pretty hard to put some perspective onto the current landscape/reality. With Covid numbers extremely high, and things that had begun to creep back in respect to the music industry in Calgary feeling very tenuous again, it has not been the best mental health day, or several days, personally. This pandemic has impacted the entire world, and though the impact is very different from that of World War I or II, the years spanned by those wars were also a time when so many had to suffer drastic changes in their living conditions and the levels of fear, anxiety, and perhaps hopelessness that they endured daily. Obviously, I am not saying what we are living now compares in severity, or in many other ways, but it is something to think about.
Perhaps then, this is the perfect time for the release of The Static Shift’s new single, “Bottom Line”, which the band describes as, “a feel good song, that touches on the significance of love and friendship”.
The Static Shift has not only weathered the acute challenges that Covid has brought to all of us this year but have also adapted to transitioning from a close knit three piece to a duo. In speaking about the song, Isaiah Stonehouse says, “With the pain and hardships we’ve gone through this year with our past band member, it truly felt like the right song to put out for the beginning of our rebirth. If you had told us last year what 2020 would look like, I don’t think either of us would’ve expected that we’d be putting out music of any sort, so I think for us it’s a huge statement and speaks to the power of music; that no matter what you’re going through, music truly does have the power to heal.”
For fans of The Static Shift, although the band has embraced what they describe as the “Indie/Alternative side of them”, “Bottom Line” still very much sounds like a Static Shift song. In an effort to stay true to their sound and methods it was recorded the same way as their previous releases, “no metronome, and 100% live off the floor”. I have always felt there was a vivacity in recordings by The Static Shift, which likely has a lot to do with this recording technique. Recently heavily influenced by The Strokes’ new record, released this year, but also with a breadth of musical influences back through the decades, The Static Shift is a rock band at heart. By that I mean a band who has a very immediate connection with the music they create. Their essence is not about overproduction or smoothing out every detail so that the sound becomes mechanical, it is about that soul to instrument flow that they achieve so very brilliantly, which is something not everyone can tap into.
Having listened to “Bottom Line” several times throughout the writing of this piece I actually have felt my sour mood lifting, and have some images growing in my mind about dancing, no doubt helped along by Mitchell Brady’s recent flossing video on social media. I do highly endorse the claimed “feel good” vibe of the track. After all, you cannot beat Mitchell’s vocals, Isaiah’s harmonies and drums, and the always present superb guitar lines that are still staples of The Static Shift sound.
Regarding looking forward, the band has this to say, “music is more powerful than any sort of virus. Although covid-19 is a horrible virus, and it has caused way too much pain across the globe, we also believe it’s caused many of us to be more thankful for what we have right now. We know that whenever we do get the opportunity to play again in front of people, it’s going to be an incredible moment. This week, we have the pleasure to release a new song, and we couldn’t be more grateful”.
Look for “Bottom Line” on streaming platforms on November 14th.
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