The Shackletons Get Casual

by John Vettese

Mark Redding recently fought a losing battle with his bandmates.

He wanted The Shackletons to continue donning their signature olive-and-brown army coats for onstage attire. The band voted him down — they felt it was too kitschy, too Hives-ish. They worried such overt fashion statements would distract from the music. Ultimately, Redding relented since, in the end, he shares those concerns.

A spirited five-piece rock band from Chambersburg, Pa., The Shackletons dish an intense blend of angular riffs and emotional catharsis — bits here and there recall '90s punk offshoots like Fugazi and At the Drive-In.

At the same time, the band is very much about crafting a visual aesthetic. Most press they've garnered makes note of the flowers and tree cuttings that cover their stages, the Christmas lights and telephones, Redding's whirling, unhinged mannerisms.

"The songs need to carry themselves," Redding says. "So when the discussion comes back to me falling or being dramatic, or the lights and flowers, I worry that they're getting lost."

The songs and style used to go hand in hand, back when these elements were less concept and more situational.

Though he'd played in small regional bands before, Redding still didn't feel comfortable in the role of frontman, and panicked when he got in front of a crowd; his bandmates, unfazed, kept playing.

These shows were held in Chambersburg, a town of less than 20,000 in an area where the broader view of local music equated to Fuel or Live. Local bars didn't have stages or sound systems, and the band had to make do with found spaces. Their favorite spot was a warehouse attached to a homeless shelter, and since stage lights weren't an option, they hung Christmas lights around their gear.

These coping mechanisms were gradually harnessed. Redding found he could use his physical tumult to convey the introspective turmoil in his songs (on their self-titled debut, he sings most of damaged or unrequited love). And when the band started playing proper venues in 2007, it didn't feel right to ditch the Christmas lights.

The flowers were arguably the point where The Shackletons firmly embraced having "a look." It was an idea cribbed partly from Morrissey, partly from Philly-area post-hardcore group MeWithoutYou: As Redding sings, he grips the bouquets tightly, thrashes them to the beat. The beauty and serenity — the calming lights, the placid flora — end up beaten down and damaged, but left standing in the end.

"It's important for me to make the show have this aesthetic," he says, "that the stage isn't this cold, bare place where the band gets on and just plays, like they deserve people's attention. We want to earn their attention."

Redding is uneasy walking the line between style and substance, since he wants it both ways; he wants people to be engaged, to be part of the experience, to feel what he's feeling. But he wants the songs — the most basic means of communicating that feeling — to remain in the forefront.

The music, drenched with emotion and obsession, is worthy of attention. "Tremble" begins with a doubled-power arpeggio ascending the fretboard, while the bass sticks to strident root notes played in time with drum hits. Redding spits, "You would faint if you knew, if you knew, how my heart beats" and we're into the chorus; one guitar continues the ascending thing, the other off and away into a crunching riff blanketing his howl: "Tremble in these trials!"

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Brilliantly branched arrangements are all over their set list: The Shackletons harness each of their five members, trying to echo one another while avoiding duplicated effort. As one guitar on "Your Movement" is working a rhythmic lead, the other is off churning out a ghostly wave of treble vibrato; meanwhile, Redding sings about a lover's eyes. The Pixies-ish "The Breaks" has the bass doing a syncopated line mimicked by one guitar, while the other plays a spastic strum along with the snare drum trill.

Since such anxiety and tension is built into the sound already, the showy visuals don't seem entirely necessary. I can't hear these songs without picturing Redding slipping and careening on fallen flower petals, which I gather is not what the band wants in the long run.

But I also can't look at photos I've taken of The Shackletons performing without linking them to certain points of their songs — a shot of Redding strutting with one hand on his cap comes from the first verse of "Get Out," the point right before the beat kicks in. One of guitarist Dan Schuchman, mouth breathlessly agape and swaying in step with bassist Josh McDaniel, is from the chorus of "Your Movement." The songs and the look are intertwined, they echo one another's concerns.

"If I fall during a show — the first time I do it, it's original," Redding reasons. "When it becomes something that's choreographed into the set, it kills that originality. But the point is not to be original, but rather to be honest."

(j_vettese@citypaper.net)

Sat., April 11, 9 p.m., $?, with Middle Distance Runner and Drink Up Buttercup, The Fire, 412 W. Girard Ave., 267-671-9298,myspace.com/liveatthefire.