It’s not easy to bring back the mood of a bygone era without coming across as a copycat, but that doesn’t stop new artists from trying. Take the Shacks, a trio of early-20s New Yorkers (singer-bassist Shannon Wise, guitarist-producer Max Shrager, and drummer Ben Borchers) who use British blues and rock bands of the 1960s and 1970s—the Animals, the Kinks, Fleetwood Mac—as their chief stylistic blueprints. On their full-length debut, Haze, they succeed in recreating a feeling of hedonistic rock‘n’roll bliss, but often end up with a Summer of Love-style dream that’s blithe verging on ignorant.
Haze is successful in showcasing the Shacks’ broad tastes, which also have room for everything from yé-yé and “Partridge Family” pop to honky-tonk waltzes. Their instrumentals feel like a collection of special effects the band wants to impress you with, and many of them are in fact impressive. On the title track, Wise’s haunting, mysterious vocals and Shrager’s banjo lick beckon the listener down a rabbit hole lined in shag carpet. That song eases into “Birds,” an escapist, “Tusk”-like tune about leaving NYC (“I left the city because my brain was fried”) that is one of the album’s most dynamic and animated moments. It’s also the third track on the album to promise a getaway, which raises the question: What are the Shacks running from? There’s no answer to be found in the silky crawl of “Sand Song,” where Wise’s dreamy vocals articulate free-floating worry without emoting the feeling at all.
That’s par for the course on Haze, an album that’s as beautiful and anodyne and dazed as a Petra Collins photograph or the poppy field scene in The Wizard of Oz. Much of the whimsy comes from Wise’s vocals: Throughout the album, she sounds like she’s cupped a hand over your ear to tell you a cosmic secret. Sometimes that approach works, as on the sensuous, endearing lead single “Follow Me,” but when she sings about faded love on “Blue & Grey,” she just sounds tired. “The way you make me feel is so good/But I can’t explain it,” she sings on “So Good,” only adding to the impression that the Shacks are stuck in a vague kaleidoscopic reverie.
On the surface, all these songs sound charming, but the magic dissipates when you pay attention to what Wise and Shrager are singing. Whether they’re harping on floral metaphors for love (“Let Your Love,” “All Day Long”) or cryptic scenes of mental fogginess (“Haze,” “My Name Is...”), the Shacks’ imagery is either cliché or confusingly nebulous. Haze is structurally elegant, but its vintage visions are hollow.
At their best, Wise’s distinctive voice and Shrager’s beautifully detailed co-production combine for a mesmerizing portrait of youth and desire, evoking scenes from a dusty psychedelic western to a wine-stained post-breakup bubble bath. Yet these moments are muddled again and again by lazy lyrics and mediocre, monotone moods. There’s nothing wrong with a narcotic high that can’t be put into words, but the Shacks haven’t figured out yet how to keep it going without killing the vibe.
