Shiner was formed in 1992 and quickly signed to DeSoto Records, owned by Jawbox’s Kim Coletta and Bill Barbot. The band enjoyed a period of creativity and extensive touring that lasted for years, culminating in their final album in 2001, The Egg, which was critically acclaimed. Pitchfork remarked, “Shiner’s six-string bloodletting beats the crap out of anything you’ll hear on commercial FM these days,” and All Music noted, “The songs themselves bask in an epic splendor, replete with the kind of arrangements that reward repeat listenings.” Throughout numerous tours of the US, Europe, and Japan, and with 4 full-length albums, they gained a fiercely loyal fanbase. Although comparisons with contemporaries such as HUM, Jawbox, Failure, and Swervedriver were inevitable, Shiner carved their own path with a dedication to song-craft and musicianship wrapped in darkly sugared hooks.
Shiner disbanded in 2002, but 10 years later, they re-released The Egg on vinyl and played sold-out shows in New York, LA, Kansas City, and Chicago. Many attendees were new to the Shiner fanclub, and these were some of their biggest shows ever. In 2018, the band members—drummer Jason Gerken, bass player Paul Malinowski, and guitarists Allen Epley and Josh Newton—decided they were not quite finished and there was another life for Shiner they could not ignore.
After a few recording sessions that took place over a year and a half, the band emerged with 8 solid songs that make up Schadenfreude. The LP was self-produced, engineered, and mixed at Malinowski’s own Massive Sound studio in Shawnee, KS. Newton mentioned, “We’ve always been extremely hands-on, even when working with someone else technically ‘producing.’ With The Egg, we ended up remixing and adding things to almost half the record on our own. At this stage in our existence, we know what we should sound like.” Despite the hiatus, Shiner has not missed a beat. Gerken’s drumming and Malinowski’s distorted-symphony bass are still as powerful as ever, while Epley and Newton work in lockstep counterpoint throughout the proceedings, leaving room for the vocals to enter the mix without overtaking, and instead working as a whole within the strings and skins.
The songs on Schadenfreude are not so much an answer to The Egg as a properly timed follow-up might be, but instead stand on their own. It’s the sound of a 4-piece band with each player finding his place in a book as though he just left the room an hour earlier and picked up on the next paragraph upon return. Epley says, “a lot of themes on the album are pretty dark but always with a silver lining around the edges. The title itself is a commentary on the most common human trait of enjoying your rivals’ demise. Or your apparent enemies.”
After their extended break from the studio and life on the road, Shiner is once again looking forward with the May 8 release of Schadenfreude and a North American tour planned for 2020.