Shutdown
By Your Side
EQUAL VISION
It can’t be easy to return with new music after a 25 year absence—especially in the hardcore scene, given how intensely energetic the music is. But that’s exactly what New York’s Shutdown have done. Though they never officially broke up, their last album (prophetically titled Few and Far Between) was released in 2000. So it’s kind of incredible that the six songs that make up their new By Your Side EP contain the same kind of ebullience and vigor that the band possessed when that last record came out. What’s more, the positivity that lies at the foundation of their earlier material remains intact and just as infectious as ever, despite the times.
Don’t be fooled, though—these aren’t motivational songs with the kind of nefarious agenda that’s so popular on social media these days, but rather moments of resilience, of kicking against the pricks and swimming against the tide, all told through a wiser, older lens. The most obvious example of that is the final track, “What Are You Thinking?” Inspired after the son of bassist Dion De Nardo was diagnosed with autism, it drives home how different (read: more family-oriented) the people who made this record are compared to who they were when we initially got to know them. A frantic, melodic hardcore anthem, it wrestles with the stigma of learning about that diagnosis and almost overcomes it in real time, ending with a gang-vocal chorus sung by all the band members’ children.
It’s a beautiful, inspiring way to round the record off, but also serves to strengthen the resolve of what precedes it—especially the aggressive insistence that drives “Our Time,” the display of solidarity that underlines the title track, and the passionate determination of “Another Day.” True to the hardcore mold, these songs are all short and sharp (the whole thing clocks in at around 15 minutes), but the comfort and message that they offer will resonate and last a lot longer—if not a lifetime.
