Shiverboard - Hacksaw Morissette

Shiveboard is a band that seemingly lives to contradict themselves. Equal parts Fat Wreck Chords and Three One G, their latest offering, the eccentric Hacksaw Morissette, is a dizzying foray into all things punk played at or above 150 bpm. The titular song, for example, is a steady hardcore beast, clearly inspired by early noisecore-turned-metalcore pioneers Reversal of Man. Just seconds after, however, “All Black Snoopy” serves up a power pop song that wouldn’t be out of place on the Warped Tour (albeit with shrieking vocals and distortion more akin to noise rock greats Today is the Day).

This careful tedium, however, is what makes Shiverboard such a compelling band and Hacksaw Morissette such an interesting album. “Drug Test” retains the juvenile sneering (and excellent bass lines) of skate punk greats Lagwagon, while undercutting it with the more informed, art-house sneering of noisecore greats The Locust. 

“Amphibian Fruit Punch” and “Angelina Shit Ton” flip the script. Straight forward, blast beat madness in the former is undercut with a breakdown-into-quasi-mathcore section that would excite Hot Topic Cashiers and Mathcore Index devotees alike. Similarly, “Angelina Shit Ton” swings from pitch shifted noisecore bliss into steady melody and back again. 

Shiverboard does not just embrace the chaos but revels in it, delighting in wild swings. And, while their indulgences with near pop punk riffing may offend genre purists, it always pays off to great results. Hacksaw Morrisette is an album balanced on a razor’s edge, always indulging in nostalgia without falling into the oh-so-seductive trap of nostalgia for nostalgia’s sake. The result is an album clearly built from its smorgasbord of influences without ever being defined by them. For a refreshing, hectic, and oddly summer-savvy piece of music, Hacksaw Morissette cannot come more highly recommended.