SHEARLING - Motherfucker, I Am Both: “Amen” And “Hallelujah”…

It's not every day you come across an album made up of a single sixty-two-minute track. This peculiar distinction may well belong to the debut by Los Angeles outfit Shearling, a bizarre, monstrous creature born from the ashes of Sprain. The two ex-Sprain members Alex Kent and Sylvie Simmons, on vocals and guitar respectively, joined by drummer Andrew Chanover and bassist Wes Nelson, bring to life a new band that debuts with the devastating “Motherfucker, I Am Both: “Amen” and “Hallelujah”…”: over an hour of music born from hundreds of hours of recordings, marked by a truly extreme noise intensity.

Onto this sonic mass are grafted brief folk incursions, electroacoustic passages, brutal dissonances, and vocals that swing between hardcore and the visionary intensity of Scott Walker. The influences are plain to see, ranging from the Swans of the last fifteen years to the electric symphonies of Glenn Branca, all the way to the electronic rock of Xiu Xiu. The sonic violence becomes progressively cathartic, at times even religious – especially around the thirty-minute mark – when an organ reaches almost unimaginable levels of volume and power.

As the track unfolds, the repetitions become almost unbearable, the screams and chants blur together, the walls of sound take on an almost physical density. In the finale, passages of musique concrète mark a sharp break before the return of the four notes that opened the piece: the circle of chaos closes and, somehow, finds meaning. An album of pure sound, as violent and sincere as a punch in the face.

Ride the wave of great music

Add OndaRock to your favorite sources on Google Discover. Don't miss our reviews, milestones and latest news straight in your feed.

Follow on Google

17/01/2026