Shrag

Shrag
Shrag in 2012.
Background information
Genres	Indiepop, post-punk, riot grrl
Years active	2003–2013
Labels	Where It's at Is Where You Are, Fortuna Pop!
Associated acts	Comet Gain, Blue Minkies, Coin Op, Polak, Crest, Medicine & Duty, Puffinboy, Burning Idiot Noise, Passiondale, The Black Neck Band of the Common Loon, Summer Hunter, Sleeperbloke, Braer Rabbit, Union Wireless, Kellar, Crystal Stilts, Buffalo Pin
Past members	Helen King Bob Brown Steph Goodman Russell Warrior Andy Pyne Leigh Anne Walter Nick Hills

Shrag were a British post-punk-influenced indiepop band, based in London and Brighton. The band released three albums on the Where It's at Is Where You Are label, the last a joint release on Fortuna Pop!

Shrag's first release was the home-recorded song "Punk Grammar", which debuted on Under The Beach, A Heart Attack – a 2003 compilation album and fanzine of Brighton bands, put together by local club night It Came From The Sea, and featuring a foreword by the then Brighton-based music critic Everett True. The fanzine tells the story of Shrag's formation in a comic book format. At the tail-end of a party in Brighton's Sussex Heights residential tower block, the remaining five revellers – made up of local DJs, promoters, academics and musicians – decide to start a band, named Sussex Heights Roving Artists Group.

Shrag continued to build a growing fanbase with steady touring, both supporting The Pains of Being Pure at Heart and headlining their own tours, but ongoing medical problems caused drummer Leigh Anne Walter to be replaced for many live performances by Medicine & Duty drummer Andy Pyne, who in 2009 became a permanent member of the band.

Consequently, many of the tracks Shrag had originally intended to appear on their forthcoming album were either shelved or re-recorded by the new line-up, while new songs that the band began working on saw them turning away from the lighter, more poppy original template for the album into much darker and more introspective territory.

The first single from Life! Death! Prizes!, Shrag's second album, was "Rabbit Kids", an anthemic love song which won the band significant mainstream radio play and plaudits in Pitchfork, All Music Guide and Drowned in Sound. Musically the band had concentrated their musical range (which had previously drifted from B-52s-esque guitar pop to synth-led ballads) into more concise, driving rock songs, although a string section on the epic album closer Coda and the waltzy Furnishings showed a softer, more vulnerable side to the band. The album's centrepiece, "The Habit Creep" was a harrowing spoken word piece depicting an individual unravelling psychologically, and the download single "Ghosts Before Breakfast" represented the noisier, artier influences of bands like Prolapse and Life Without Buildings.

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