There’s a moment in the life of all new, exciting acts, in any given scene, where they must accept that they aren’t the newest, most exciting thing anymore. Two Shell, while not overtly making such concessions, seem to have at least become marginally aware of this truth. The novelty of their trolling nature has partially dulled, the identity concealing has supposedly been put to the side (though multiple “faces” seem to have been put forth-–are they even a duo?), and the extra-musical antics (boiler room lookalikes, self-imploding interviews, vanishing releases) have stopped taking up so much of their newspace. The quieting of the noise surrounding them allows us to mostly deal with just the music, and, considering their trajectory up until now, this is a welcome change. Since their bubbly, hyperspeed, and effortlessly emotionally in-tune breakout single “home” hit the internet at the top of 2022, their slight discography has seen the electronic duo take a variety of turns to get to where they are now.
First there was their Icons EP in June of that same year, which in many ways remains their high-water mark, a kinetic, hyper-synthetic, five-part set of songs that lurched around their endless universe, taking exhilarating detours to get wherever they were going. Here the drums, like in much of their output before the critical fame (and unlike on “home”), were consistently heavy, and textures glitched into unfamiliar, jagged shapes. There was, of course, an underlying playfulness present, mostly provided by spoken vocals sparingly used as stage dressing, but the constant play with tension and release was what made its songs feel so necessary. The following year, they released the lil spirits EP. It somehow felt less vital, letting those trollish impulses morph into something not so much sly as simply upfront in their want to be unserious. For one, the music largely dealt in low stake progressions and more underwhelming drops. The impish vocals were now more pronounced, taking the role of melodramatic status announcers. Where the brain-rot-influenced insouciance was implied but never in your face beforehand, it now felt like a main reason for the music. They were tying you to a tangible internet-centric space, and this was decidedly less appealing than being launched from one unknowable stratosphere to another.
Thankfully, Two Shell’s long-awaited, self-titled debut LP largely finds them honing in on the more appealing aspects of a linear, grounded approach to dance music. The overtly difficult elements from lil spirits are mainly gone, and there is a better balance of the serious and the frivolous than on that EP. They wield their omnipresent vocal snippets more thoughtfully, and while these still hold a certain acted-out quality that hints at the entities behind the board not giving too many shits, they mostly don’t take away from the integrity of the songs. Examples of this include the on-the-nose vocal wailing “I’m hurt / I’m really hurting” on “be gentle with me”, the titular refrain on “be somebody”, or the comically longing voices that propel closer “Mirror”. While these mostly work, some instances still fall flat. At one point in the latter song, the ultimate default spoken-word voice makes an appearance to state that the singer “never knew,” in response to the sung refrain that’s been happening the whole song (“I never knew what I had”) – is that really necessary? Nonetheless, this time around, having the vocals take over the role of Icons’ more abstract synth and sample work as the song’s melodic mastheads overwhelmingly works, and definitely better than on anything since “home.”
As with the rest of their recent output, most of Two Shell’s songs largely revolve around one major idea. Where, on an Icons song like “Ghosts”, one couldn’t recall how the song started by the end of their first listen, few here stray too far from where they start for this to happen. A number of them, such as “come to terms” and ”Everybody Worldwide”, are based around conventional four-on-the-floor-adjacent beats that largely remain the same throughout—the drums are more lithe and pillowy than before here—and there are now slow-burning, muted synths where before they were highly saturated and sharp. While these factors would usually imply a less adventurous approach, here they actually allow for more directly sensuous and diverse moments to happen, such as the breathy humming and earthy drums on “dreamcast.”
The full-length format allows for the kinds of explorations a more tightly-wound Two Shell EP wouldn’t usually seem to allow. The second half of “Mirrors” starts off sounding like it’s emanating from a cross-section between self-titled-era James Blake and 2016 Bon Iver – it’s likely the most hauntingly gorgeous moment in the Two Shell catalog. The ever-present SOPHIE influence (the average Two Shell song can usually be traced back in one way or another to her 2015 single “BIPP”) shows up in new ways here too: ambient track “/inside//” feels like a direct continuation of the more overtly ambient sections of OIL OF EVERY PEARL’S UNINSIDES. Inversely, “(rock✧solid)” finds them embracing outright violent textures like rarely before, with a chanting sample chop that begins to approximate the most harrowing moments on Burial’s Dreamfear/Boy Sent From Above from earlier this year.
That said, for being their first full-length album, this project still makes it feel like their previous, shorter bodies of work were ultimately more incisive in mapping out the Two Shell iconography. Shadows of their Sugarbabes rework “Round” from earlier this year—which, along with FKA twigs collab “talk to me”, remains the best Two Shell showing since Icons—are sprinkled into the short opener, but it feels like a missed opportunity to place such signpost singles in the LP. “(rock✧solid)” and earliest single “₊˚⊹gimmi it” are likely the most aggressive and attention-grabbing tracks on Two Shell, and, while they don’t quite match the thrill of a “Ghosts” or “Pods”, they can most definitely still hold their own in a high-energy club environment. In serving as a sort of exercise in glitchiness, however, “₊˚⊹gimmi it” unfortunately ends up sounding a bit closer in spirit to a B-side from Jamie xx’s In Waves, in its flirtation with emotional anonymity. In the latter half of the album, “Stars..” feels like it could serve as that kind of anchoring moment, but its rise leads instead to relatively quaint drums and never feels like it truly takes off.
But maybe that’s the point here – in avoiding the inclusion of a signpost moment, they are able to present more of themselves in a sprawling manner, without having their audience be able to attach to any particular bit that would block out the rest. When the extra-musical stunts stop feeling new and surprising, sometimes you’ve gotta show them that you can play the long game with the music, too, a trick always up your sleeve.