Shard ‘Make Me Butterfly’
(a Shard product)
(April '05)
Following their debut album ‘InPerfection’ – supported by local music collective Live Circuit – the ten-legged glittery beast that is Shard went out on the road and worked and played with most members of the late-‘90s glam-punk royalty, from King Adora to Queen Adreena and right down to Rachel Stamp. Now they return with more songs about sex, death and butterflies.
This group have come a long way since their young days as emotional gothic types, but were never afraid of adding new styles to their musical palette. ‘Make Me Butterfly’ turns the amps up one louder. Hammering out one mammoth riff, charged with piercing synths and sex-crime wailing, it sounds more like garage-romo than anything else. I’m not sure what it’s all about, but it suggests some attractive imagery. “Such a slick guy… oh, how exciting!” With such a msterious air of darkness, I’m not sure I even want to know what it’s all about. Not quite as shouty, ‘Die Happy Picnic’ flounces around in a psychedelic haze, stomps around the nightclub and pouts in the direction of the Manics (“stay beautiful”), takes a deep breath and waltzes out again, impressively disappearing up its own melodramatic coda. I’m such guitar action would be good fun to watch live; the band love to dress up and put on a show.
I wouldn’t want to put down the screamingly confident delivery of this pick ‘n’ mix single, but for me the most memorable track here is maybe the most subtle. Revamped from the album, ‘Le Petit Mort’ is sleazy-listening so ice-cold cool it almost hurts. With subversively sing-song lyrics -“a quick affair with an older lay-dee”- the group’s various vocal talents are put to good effect and the track has a synthy sheen to it that isn’t tacky. Unlike some of their peers, the influence that Shard take from the 80s – now in fashion AGAIN – is combined with a magpie desire for any other era which takes their fancy. The world is theirs for the taking, and they'll make it just what they want.
