Album Review: SHVPES - Greater Than

This band sounds like it is doing its level best to please just about everyone. If you like rock, metal, pop, hip hop (check out Two Wrongs, No Rights), rap-rock (Someone Else) electronica and plenty more in between, there are plenty of moments here for you.

And the thing is, they do everything absolutely convincingly. If you drop in on one of the hip hoppy tracks, you would think you were listening to a bona fide hip hop album, and the same goes for any of the myriad styles they employ here.

The overriding vibe is that of a big, anthemic, fist-pumping although idiosyncratic modern rock album, with the other elements thrown in for flavour, like an exquisite spice added to your favourite dish at an expensive restaurant. Each track is vibrantly different to the one that precedes it and the one that follows, and yet the album flows beautifully end to end. And rising above it all is the melodically gravelly voice of Griffin Dickinson. He really is following nicely in his old man Bruce’s footsteps.

Shvpes have created something rather big, bold and beautiful here, this is a rich, hyper-diverse rock album, conceived with real imagination and an avoidance of clichés and delivered with lashings of sass and verve. Fans of just about any form of non-plastic modern popular music will find something to enjoy here.