Album Review: Good Shade – Way Out

Good Shade is the vision of just one man, Shane Natalie, who is solely responsible for pretty much every aspect of this album, although live he recruits from an array of Columbus alumni that enables Good Shade to be taken out on the road. The band previously released material through Jeff Rosenstock‘s Quote Unquote Records and Anti Flag‘s A-F Records and they have now released their latest full length, Way Out, via their new home at Dirtnap Records.

Maybe kicks off Way Out, a track that resembles ahead on collision between Osaka Poster, The Marked Men and Nerf Herder and as such makes a promising start for Good Shade‘s latest full length. Way Out continues to power along with it’s trashy off kilter garage punk power pop, tracks like Must Have Been capture the manic energy that The Cardiacs possessed, even tracks like Apnea, that brings a Britpop sensibility into the mix, and Hurry It Up, that adopts vintage UK psychedelia, don’t feel out of place. If you put aside Way Out‘s manic episodes and forays into the UK’s indie and psych scenes this is an album that borders on power pop perfection.

Way Out is easily Good Shade‘s strongest release to date, the production lies just on the right side of raw and the energy levels never dissipate. Way Out is an album that has taken the finest elements from the four diverse scenes, and Good Shade have tied these disparate elements together into a coherent twelve tracks that I find hard to fault. The end result is that Way Out is a feel good album that assimilates indie, punk, psych, power pop and garage influences to create a flawless full length that is the perfect introduction to an unsung and underrated artist.

Way Out can be streamed and purchased via Dirtnap Records here

Good Shade can be found on Facebook here and Bandcamp here