You have got to love a song that keeps you guessing, keeps evolving, keeps adding new and interesting details, a song that doesn’t pander to the listener’s expectations but instead follows its own path, plays by its own rules. And that is exactly what you find with The Shrubs and their latest single, “Let Us In.”
And they start throwing curveballs straight away, that intro, which sounds like a demo, and one being played loudly three doors down, had me checking volumes and settings before the song proper reveals itself and explodes in shards of shimmering guitar, boisterous beats, and grumbling basslines.
Okay, it settles down fairly quickly, pulled by the ebb and flow of creative tides between spacious, dream-pop lulls and bigger shoegaze crescendoes, but there is more to it than that, and in turns it throws around arabesque interludes, hazy moodscapes littered with strange sonic motifs, buzzy basses, and more before alighting on a sublime final sonic question mark.
But “Let Us In” is not just an intriguing song but a poignant one, shedding light on how quick we are to judge, especially when dealing with critical issues such as homelessness or mental health issues. “Walk a mile in their shoes,” before assuming the worst, it perhaps suggests.
Sonically, a great song, one that echoes late eighties UK indie, mixed with a more progressive alt-rock, and lyrically addressing one of the timely, though also sadly timeless, issues of society and the human condition.
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