Music Review // of Shapes "Mantis"

 

One of the first things I immediately hear and enjoy about the song "Mantis" is that the sound seems to be coming from a dark place.  It's not quite darkwave or a darkgaze, but it feels haunted in the same way that old AFI did or the type of bands you might listen to a little bit more around Halloween.  I feel like this is also fitting because the song itself plays out lyrically like a Kaiju movie.  I imagine the person (a woman) transforming into a mantis and seducing their prey.  If you know anything about the mantis, you know what happens after that.

There are a few different sounds which come out for me in this song.  At first I think of older punk bands, like from the era of CBGB's, but then I also think of bands like Sahara Hotnights.  It just has that energy of The Runaways and really kicks in during the chorus.  But for all of that enthusiasm that I relate with punk rock, there is also this added layer of sound on here which I cannot quite fully describe.

Before the end of "Mantis" there is this bridge where of Shapes just drops down into a deeper, more bass-filled part.  This makes me realize the way in which this song has had these metal undertones all along.  It's not the big, chunky metal you might be used to, but it's that intense feeling when you are listening to a band like Maggot Heart.   There might be other influences which you hear as well, but just the fact that this song can feel like it's crossing genres makes it so special right away.

In some weird way, I think of this song as being like a modern remake of the Hall & Oates song "Maneater" but from the female point of view.  There aren't really a lot of songs like this any more, but they also don't ever seem to get quite so literal in their ways, as this one has lyrics like "You're drawn to it", which just puts a focus on that primal instinct.  Again, it feels more like a horror movie with a giant bug than a story about a human but in some ways I guess it is just both.