Album Review: Hurting Other People by Shagg Carpet
A little over a year ago, I sat down in an eclectically decorated room to talk with local egg punk band Shagg Carpet after they released their debut album Bugged. We talked for about an hour and as the conversation wound down, I asked them about their future. They all added bits and pieces of ideas for future shows, songs, videos, and looks. With a certain look of fervour, singer Rook eagerly mentioned an idea for a record, one where you wake up on the wrong beach in Miami. Cut to Hurting Other People, released this past July through M.E.C. Records and Sockhead Records.
One of the things that really made me fall in love with this group is their world-building. Bugged seemed to follow a central character interacting with a familiar life in Richmond, but plagued by a reasonable sense of paranoia and anxiety. Hurting Other People branches off from that singular character’s internal monologue, with each song recording an interaction.
The record opens up with “Sleeping With Fish” as a heartbeat drum beat and an anthemic keyboard part let us know it is the Shagg we know and love. As I see it, the protagonist washes up on some sort of sickly, commercial party on the beach. Rook’s lyrics play with absurdist imagery of some big-wig getting everyone to pay for a chance to boogie, but can easily be seen as the rich’s commitment to political parties. The closing line of “Then the taxman can cut me a break\ It’s all a part of the party” gives us an honest look at what the rich really have in mind for us as we consume endlessly.
We then descend deeper into the city with “Deepsea Disco,” a blitzing, anxiety-inducing track where we meet more of the beach town residents. A horn comes in to paint the cityscapes’ pumping nightlife. Everywhere you look, there are swirling colors and flashing lights, people working and grinding and panting. The song hits a sudden decrescendo, and a low, fuzzy vocal comes through. It reads like seeing an old, ragged man, drifting slowly through the hazy mist of busy people. It reaches out with an uncomfortable truth that lies in everyone’s future.
We leave that lost old man in the street and enter a new scene. “City Of Dogs” is a nonsensical yet wisdom-bound stream-of-consciousness monologue. It sounds like a tale you would hear from some drug-filled, hollow-eyed man late at night outside of a club, one you keep stepping away from, but he keeps stepping forward. That anxiety bleeds into every instrument. Sam Colaccino’s trumpet continues on this track, blaring away, with the addition of Rinatt Montoya playing some fascinating guitar. The speaker in this song seems like a foil to the character I have spun up in my head. The kid who washes up on the shore in the first track sees all he could become if he lets the city get to him.
Here we get to “Domestic Thought Experiment.” This was the debut single for this album, and one of my most consistently played tracks in recent days. To me, this song exists in its own bubble. It is one of the most accurate descriptions of the generational divide that is expanding between the aging and powerful boomer generation and the young and hopeless Gen Z’s. This holds Rook’s most gut-wrenching lyric to date:
‘Bout how your kids can’t even read
Imma buy my kid some Kevlar
The only thing they’ll ever need“
While Bugged held an almost comical mirror to reality, this one strips away any bit of paint to reveal the barbaric life that has been shoved upon us. This song sums up the position that the modern young American has been shoved into, and its abrupt stop leaves me questioning my own future.
Whatever conclusions the protagonist was coming to are interrupted by the mesmerizing commercial of “Beach Body.” This satire on weight loss commercials and programming strips back everything that advertising tries to convey. They want us to be sick and self-conscious so we keep buying and consuming. The ending speed-reading of the info-mercial terms and conditions never fails to raise my blood pressure and somehow make me laugh.
Leaving that TV we get to “Shotgun Leather.” This is probably the most similarly insane to Bugged. The character here is some sort of Mad Max-esque leather-clad brute who seems ready to beat anyone to a pulp. It speaks to the idea of wanting to be tough, but the absurdity in making it your personality.
Dipping away from that song, the character slips into the nearest door and enters the world of “Luck Strat.” A Viagra Boys-esque bass line fills the air, and some drunken degenerate immediately begins to ramble on his wins and losses. The lyrics in this song are so immersive and the characters are so lively in their disheveled state. Towards the song’s end, we get our second Shagg Carpet and Jack Sample (Tentative Decisions) team-up. He provides a similar monologue of degenerative nonsense. These two singers are experts on fleshing out full characters in only a handful of lines. In about eight lines, you can see this gambling addict shake and sway uncontrollably, smell something foul drifting from their open mouths.
Running out of the casino, we are caught up in the middle of “Sticking Around,” featuring local noise group Cannabyss. The song speeds through like it has injected something sinister. You feel this one in your bones and blood, and you’ve started running before you even realize.
Someone sees your struggle and offers you a hand into somewhere quieter. “XXX Erotic, Vol. 9” is a bumping disco. It speaks to the hedonist and enjoyer. There is an unending stream of dialogue on the exploitative world of digital sex, but moreover, the sexualization of attention and control. This seems like another approach to “Hell In A Cell,” the group’s debut single. Both talk extensively about the firm grip that electronics have in modern society. They slip their fingers into every corner of our brains and push buttons like we are some sort of NPC.
We don’t realize, but we are somewhere else now: “IRL IRL.” It is hazy and not quite clear; the vocals are fuzzier than they have ever been. This is the meat-and-potatoes of their songwriting. A compelling chord progression pulls you forward, not aggressively, leading you by the hand. The lyrics are mystical, some sort of conversation between someone that feels other worldly, and a realist antagonist. The song erupts into a second life. It is poppier than we have seen. The lyrics are now an honest self-reflection on where we come from.
I came from dirt
A hairless monkey
In a shirt”
These are lyrics straight from the ribs. “I’m screaming bloody but no one hears me.” It feels like lying on the ground, watching stars billions of miles away turn without emotion or sympathy.
Someone picks you up quicker than you realize. It’s Surfer Dude, the speaker for the eagerly upbeat track called “Tim Allen.” He details a carefree attitude, a life where he surfs away his cares. The lighthearted nature is undermined by a sense of support that the protagonist lacks. Surfer Dude feels like one of those people you see post-college, they are always posting their trips to Italy and you wonder how. Daddy’s money makes you a surfer dude. The real slap of reality in this song is “it’s hard to look clean when there’s shit in the river,” an easy callout of the James River. You can only imagine where Surfer Dude came from.
“White Whale” immediately opens with a haunting sample over a God-like keyboard part. This is one of the simplest songs on the record, but hits so incredibly hard. This song feels like wandering, knowing it’s all coming to an end, sensing the rising sun below the dark horizon.
“Digital Fruitcakes” features Alfred, local rapper (and artist behind the album’s cover), with a hard-hitting verse that got my blood pumping. This track reminds me of “Intermission” from their first record, almost like the loading screen of an old standup arcade game. The drums are eccentric and the keyboard is nice and crunchy. It is hard to be sandwiched between two hard-hitting powerful tunes, but overall this is a fun track.
“End Of The Line” follows suit with a feature from Roughshod singer Cel. It opens up with booming, steady drums. Soon, Cel joins with his stunning and locally iconic voice. This takes it to a further level of pop than “IRL IRL,” a revolving cylinder of melody as the two vocalists outline a surrealist existence of greed. The song holds such outstanding dread but also such undying hope. I’d like to picture the protagonist slowly walking back into the ocean from which he washed up, accepting the unknown and leaving a world he could not become a part of.
We close with “Return To Cinder,” an almost cowboy-style, mesmerizing tune. It makes you want to become rid of it all. Give away your possessions and just live under the sky. This song is the sun finally coming up over the horizon. It is the realization that everything the protagonist has experienced is folly: “Everything that’s pure in life is free\ You didn’t hear that from me.” The song features a somewhat tongue-in-cheek over-the-top sample about the journey. I think no matter how cynical Shagg may be, there is an underlying hope, a sense of optimism, and a belief in good.
Hurting Other People has surpassed all that could be expected from Shagg Carpet. They could have remade Bugged and kept people happy, but instead, they explore a new world, create songs we were not expecting, and deliver us a subversive, Ulysses-esque full story.
Shagg Carpet, everyone.
Hurting Other People is out now via M.E.C. RECS and Sockhead Records, available to stream on all major platforms. To stay up-to-date on the band’s next performance and releases, follow them on Instagram and bookmark their Linktree.
