It’s late September, and autumn is upon us. If you haven’t noticed that, Otis Shanty are here to remind you. The quartet, who initially met in college in upstate New York, are now based in Somerville, Massachusetts, on the Boston outskirts, and their first full-length album, Up on the Hill, is filled with fuzzy guitars and dreamy melodies that almost seem tailor-made for cooler temperatures. The vaguely psychedelic riffs and subtle nods to the Seattle sounds of the early 1990s recall an earlier era in indie rock, but this quartet is also planted squarely in the present and looking ahead.
Following last year’s EP Early Bird, Otis Shanty – vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Sadye Bobbette, guitarist Ryan DiLello, bassist Julian Snyder, and drummer Jono Quinn – are still doing things in much the same way on the new record but seem to have further refined their songwriting and overall band dynamic. While there are plenty of retro college radio sounds reminiscent of Mazzy Star and the Sundays, as well as the guitar-fueled dream pop of bands like Ride and the House of Love, Otis Shanty’s sound often invites comparisons to contemporaries like Courtney Barnett and Kurt Vile.
Up on the Hill begins somewhat gently with the electric guitar fingerpicking of “Nobody’s Party”, one of the singles, and it slowly builds in intensity, with Bobbette singing the dreamy couplet “Anything will fly / With the roof detached” over and over. The dream pop vibe soon gets a makeover in the form of the cavernous, booming guitars that introduce “Tree Queen”. The intense bass and drum interplay between Snyder and Quinn is irresistible and provides the perfect foil for Bobbette and DiLello’s twin guitar attack.
Another notable highlight among many memorable moments is the single “Outrage”, which goes back and forth between soaring riffs and Bobbette’s vocals dancing over the chugging rhythm section. “I can’t swallow a face full of outrage,” she sings. “I might have cut it out too late.” They’re not above fusing relatively disparate musical influences in order to create a unique sound, as on the opening riff of “Seasonal Apprehension”, which melds a bit of classic rock riffing with the more modern touches of Built to Spill. DiLello takes lead vocals here, with a perfect garage-rock snarl that eventually makes room for some beautiful, lengthy guitar soloing.
For every moment that Otis Shanty show easy, subtle restraint, as on the deeply melodic, almost pop-centric “Pipeline”, they also enjoy delving into their dreamier side, as on the gleaming, slow-burn of “Saving, Waiting”, which sounds like a gentle lullaby filtered through guitar effects and loud amplifiers. Up on the Hill closes with the gauzy, psychedelic reflection of “Burdened”, beginning as a gentle, almost hymn-like musical declaration, until the slashing guitars and quickly shifting tempo has Otis Shanty spinning and twirling into the album’s eventual conclusion. With Up on the Hill, Otis Shanty have taken the guitar-based, dream-pop template and reinvented it beautifully for a new era.