Life! Death! Prizes!
by Shrag
Dave Q
BeAn
Ian Badcock
Jonathan Roby
James Boocock
kevin beech
Dan Thomas
snorrimon
Matthew Breach
Albingier
Noel
Rhys Waring
tonieee
RobJam
Peculiar Blue
Nick Godfrey
Betweenplanets
bobtoldmetodoit
Shiyu
Lucas Mayhew
claude VANZETTO
nt_prfct
Jayne Kleissler
Birdienumnums
mark dowman
Nils Lindblom
Carsten Krause
Gary Kaill
floatboat
The Vinyl Constituency
Snowflaking
LU
leighcame
tinycowboy
greg1963
craigtrobinson
hmh
Matthew Howard
Mathew Schwartz
napzap
shaun77
imuzz
ratna
Maarton
Popsick
emmakupa
dave hibell
John Michael Oldham
Crawl For The Moon
-
Record/Vinyl + Digital AlbumIncludes unlimited streaming of Life! Death! Prizes! via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.ships out within 7 days8 remainingPurchasable with gift card
£10 GBP or more
-
-
Record/Vinyl + Digital Albumincludes:
12" album of Life! Death! Prizes
7" of Rabbit Kids
handmade 12" tote, with 7" pocket
Includes unlimited streaming of Life! Death! Prizes! via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.ships out within 14 days6 remainingPurchasable with gift card£25 GBP or more
-
-
Record/Vinyl + Digital AlbumIncludes unlimited streaming of Life! Death! Prizes! via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.ships out within 14 daysedition of 500Purchasable with gift card
£12 GBP
-
Compact Disc (CD) + Digital AlbumIncludes unlimited streaming of Life! Death! Prizes! via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.ships out within 14 daysedition of 1000 87 remainingPurchasable with gift card
£5 GBP
-
test pressing
Record/Vinyl + Digital Albumhere are the test pressings to celebrate the tenth anniversary of Shrag's Life! Death! Prizes LP!
Includes unlimited streaming of Life! Death! Prizes! via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.Sold Out
-
1. |
A Certain Violence
03:04
|
|
||
2. |
Stubborn Or Bust
02:13
|
|
||
3. |
Their Stats
03:14
|
|
||
4. |
||||
5. |
Ghosts Before Breakfast
02:58
|
|
||
6. |
The Habit Creep
04:43
|
|
||
7. |
Rabbit Kids
03:22
|
|
||
8. |
Faux-Coda
03:37
|
|
||
9. |
When We Go Courting
02:46
|
|
||
10. |
Furnishings
04:09
|
|
||
11. |
More Than Mornings
03:31
|
|
||
12. |
Coda
05:48
|
|
about
Shrag take their name from an apartment block in their hometown of Brighton, England. According to an interview the quintet did this summer with the blog Rhubarb Bomb, one of the band members lived in a building called Sussex Heights, so their unusual moniker is really an acronym for "Sussex Heights Roving Artist Group." Not exactly the kind of thing you imagine they settled on expecting to have to market it all these years later to a wider audience. Was this Joy Division? Not at all. The Desperate Bicycles? Shampoo? Bis? Getting warmer...
Shrag's self-titled debut album was the result of a similarly haphazard process, and it turned out to be one of last year's most enjoyable indie pop releases. Scruffy, heartbroken, and genuinely communicative at a time when bands are increasingly getting by on mood or genre signifiers alone, Shrag collected some of the well-crafted, cleverly affecting singles and mp3s the band had quietly offered up in the past few years, including "Hopelessly Wasted", "Forty Five 45s", and (for those of us still too freaked out by adulthood to become parents) "Pregnancy Scene". With Life! Death! Prizes!, Shrag attempt a sophomore LP that works more like an album than a collection of singles, and they mostly succeed.
When they're doing tightly coiled pop songs that could stand beautifully on their own, the group-- now two women and three men, following former drummer Leigh-Ann's illness-related departure-- can be quite charming. Keyboard-streaked and punk-spiked, boy-girl duets "Tights in August" and "Rabbit Kids" are as catchy and upbeat as the feelings they express are confused and conflicted: "Your love is like your August tights/ It looks all right, but they're impractical tonight." Slowing it down but not turning off the distortion for "Their Stats", Life! Death! Prizes! scores another potential alternate-universe hit, a jagged, jerking anxiety attack that feels like the apt product of a time when "friendship" has become nothing but a number on a Facebook scorecard.
Like so many indie bands' second albums, though, Life! Death! Prizes! suffers just a little from having to be conceived during a year or so rather than a lifetime. The shouty "Faux-Coda" ("miraculous, still not over") and plaintive, poignant "Coda" ("It was a terrible year, though") are endearing and, production-wise, miles ahead of the band's past work, but they don't have the direct-hit impact of Shrag's "Talk to the Left" or "Mark E. Smith". They feel like, well, album tracks. That's fine-- they support the record's overall flow-- but it's still difficult for them to stand out in the crowded field of bands reminiscent of the UK's first big do-it-yourself wave. And the distinctive, much-needed female perspective on the indie scene shown in past singles like "Different Glue" is no longer much in evidence, either. Whether they were planning on it or not, Shrag deserve their own chance to reach a bigger audience, only for now, they're a slightly better singles group than albums group. Given indie pop's 7" culture and their own humble origins, it sort of suits them. - - pitchfork
Shrag's self-titled debut album was the result of a similarly haphazard process, and it turned out to be one of last year's most enjoyable indie pop releases. Scruffy, heartbroken, and genuinely communicative at a time when bands are increasingly getting by on mood or genre signifiers alone, Shrag collected some of the well-crafted, cleverly affecting singles and mp3s the band had quietly offered up in the past few years, including "Hopelessly Wasted", "Forty Five 45s", and (for those of us still too freaked out by adulthood to become parents) "Pregnancy Scene". With Life! Death! Prizes!, Shrag attempt a sophomore LP that works more like an album than a collection of singles, and they mostly succeed.
When they're doing tightly coiled pop songs that could stand beautifully on their own, the group-- now two women and three men, following former drummer Leigh-Ann's illness-related departure-- can be quite charming. Keyboard-streaked and punk-spiked, boy-girl duets "Tights in August" and "Rabbit Kids" are as catchy and upbeat as the feelings they express are confused and conflicted: "Your love is like your August tights/ It looks all right, but they're impractical tonight." Slowing it down but not turning off the distortion for "Their Stats", Life! Death! Prizes! scores another potential alternate-universe hit, a jagged, jerking anxiety attack that feels like the apt product of a time when "friendship" has become nothing but a number on a Facebook scorecard.
Like so many indie bands' second albums, though, Life! Death! Prizes! suffers just a little from having to be conceived during a year or so rather than a lifetime. The shouty "Faux-Coda" ("miraculous, still not over") and plaintive, poignant "Coda" ("It was a terrible year, though") are endearing and, production-wise, miles ahead of the band's past work, but they don't have the direct-hit impact of Shrag's "Talk to the Left" or "Mark E. Smith". They feel like, well, album tracks. That's fine-- they support the record's overall flow-- but it's still difficult for them to stand out in the crowded field of bands reminiscent of the UK's first big do-it-yourself wave. And the distinctive, much-needed female perspective on the indie scene shown in past singles like "Different Glue" is no longer much in evidence, either. Whether they were planning on it or not, Shrag deserve their own chance to reach a bigger audience, only for now, they're a slightly better singles group than albums group. Given indie pop's 7" culture and their own humble origins, it sort of suits them. - - pitchfork
credits
released October 4, 2010
license
all rights reserved
tags
discography
-
May 2024 -
Dec 2012 -
Oct 2015 -
Dec 2020
contact / help
If you like Life! Death! Prizes!, you may also like:
-
Indietracks Compilation 2013
by Various Artistssupported by 14 fans who also own “Life! Death! Prizes!”
Awesome compilation featuring the never less than stellar Helen Love!
go to album -
Indietracks Compilation 2012
by Various Artistssupported by 14 fans who also own “Life! Death! Prizes!”
Great value and these comps really do highlight just how much good music is around.
go to album -
Indietracks Compilation 2014
by Various Artistssupported by 14 fans who also own “Life! Death! Prizes!”
Another great album - dean wareham, joanna gruesome, lonely tourist, dorotea, the chills, manhattan love suicides & spearmint are all highlights but the whole lot is pretty darn great really
go to album -
Get groovy with the new one from Orions Belte, an album bursting with lithe basslines and hooky melodies.
go to album -
1980s Bubblegum
by The ParticlesIndie pop is actually punk and exhibit A is the Particles, whose music gets a welcome reissue on Australian indie powerhouse Chapter Music.
go to album -
This album by the Brooklyn-based alternative artist follows the life of a cyborg from captivity to liberation.
go to album -
Indietracks Compilation 2016
by Indietracks Festivalsupported by 13 fans who also own “Life! Death! Prizes!”
Revision Time: so many new bands to form an opinion on before deciding on whether to join the queue to get into the church.
go to album
