I think that High Flyin’ Kid Stuff by Shallow is a really good album but I have some problems with it. The album has eleven songs with a combined time of 44 minutes and 34 seconds. It was released on June 10, 1997 as their second album. It was distributed by Alternative Distribution Alliance through CD copies plus now being on streaming services, and it doesn’t seem to have any other physical releases. It was produced at The Playground in Chicago by Keith Cleversley, who also worked with The Flaming Lips and Mercury Rev. This album is shoegaze, dream pop, and twee music put together into one.
Shallow is actually a band that consists of three people instead of the musical duos and loads of former members I seem to find now. The three members of the band were Julie Shields (lead vocals, guitar, flute, hammered dulcimer, piano, organ and bells), Jason Shields (bass guitar, loops, machine programming, samplers, and sound effects) and Ryan Newton (guitar). Additionally Stephen Kretsinger is credited with most of the drum work relating to High Flyin’ Kid Stuff. Shallow was disbanded in the 2000s after the release of their third album but Julie and Jason Shields formed a new band called The Capsules with drummer Kevin Trevino.
Shallow had a few ways of making them stand out compared to other bands trying to make shoegaze music at the time. Shallow liked to contrast Julie’s sweet sounding vocals with heavy and aggressive guitars. They also liked using lesser used instruments to make their music that much unique. I think High Flyin’ Kid Stuff has some very strong tracks but I think that the other songs seem much weaker. My favorite songs are “Missile Command”, “You Give Me Butterflies”, “Straight Away” and “The Strangest Thing”. For me I think it’s just that the louder songs make the quiet ones lack something. I think some clacking in one of the songs would’ve made me happy.
The good thing about the album is it doesn’t do anything that annoys me like a lot of others do like long breaks of silence or songs under two minutes. I think this album was at its best when the music was dense, I think Julie’s vocals work well with something that helps to overwhelm the mind. In the end, I’m giving High Flyin’ Kid Stuff a 3.5/5 because it mostly does a good job but not anything that feels game changing, partially because of how unique it all was and how hard it may be to replicate it.
