Shannon McArdle

Summer of the Whore

(Bar/None)

Record Review by Adam McKibbin

Indie fans love a good romance – shoot, who doesn’t?  There are lots of happy couples gracing stages these days – but, just like out in the real world, they aren’t all built to last.  So, sadly, was the case of The Mendoza Line’s Shannon McArdle and Tim Bracy.  After ten years, Bracy decided he needed out; McArdle was blindsided.  The marriage and the band both dissolved.  The latter went out with the swan song 30 Year Low, which quite convincingly detailed the dissolution of a relationship.

McArdle was left to pick up the pieces, and Summer of the Whore is the result of her reflections on love lost and trust betrayed.

Instead of a generalized breakup album, McArdle wound up with one that has the effect of being able to read her mind – or read her journal.  “Do I wear the ring, or would it fuck with my head?” she wonders on “Paint the Walls.”  “Do I sleep on my side, or in the middle of the bed?”   And later, in the same song:  “Am I used up goods?  Could someone make me new?  Will I always have this awful love for you?”  While the lyrics are searing and soul-searching, the music is consistently pleasant and mellow, brushed with an easy indie-twang.   Instead of singing herself ragged, McArdle often sounds numbed, detached – which can heighten the effect, as on the gently propulsive opener “Poison My Cup,” in which she implores a new and temporary lover to dispense with the niceties and “just fuck me up.”

She can’t contain herself on “He Was Gone,” a gut-wrenching song in which McArdle considers the baby that she always wanted – the baby the couple will never have together.  “You don’t fuck around with this particular fever,” she sings, her voice betraying a flash of anger and a flash of pain.  “You just cannot dangle that bait, you do not ask her to wait just to leave her.”

The lyrics merit an inordinate mention because they have a brutality and honesty that’s apt to be unlike anything you hear this year – whereas the music is alternately moody and peppy (like the twangy, poppy “This Longing”), but never anything as remarkable as the story it’s servicing.