Don’t Look at Me the Way a Dog Might Look at Your Leg by Shearling

For fans of Sprain, Swans, Sean McCann, dark, folksy singer-songwriters, and livestock of all kinds, Don’t Look at Me the Way a Dog Might Look at Your Leg by Shearling continues this visionary noise rock band’s existential explosion, pivoting from uncontainable rage into an inescapable depression through the intensification of folk influences. Aesthetically, an understated folk foundation gives these endlessly poignant lyrics plenty of room to shine, and the band’s previous experience in dissonant experimental rock reappears with similarly tense chords applied to acoustic guitars instead. More so than ever before, to the point at times of using electronically repeated samples, Shearling displays a ruthless dedication to cyclical composition, letting these tracks naturally pulse and breathe as their tiny dynamic ebbs and flows build into something much larger. At this aesthetic summit, we look out onto a pure spiritual void, the thin air suffocating us with the emptiness of a people alienated from both their animal and rational natures, banishing themselves to an eternity of wandering the wilderness.