Makeshift Shelters: only if you enjoy living

If my time with Bear Grills has taught me anything, it’s that you can create Makeshift Shelters out of anything. You can hollow out a tree trunk (if you’ve got the time and the tools), you can weave those long stringy leaves together like a quilt with sticks and make a roof (if you know how to weave), you can hunt down some large game, cut them open and sleep inside their skin for warmth on a dark and cold night (if you can stand the stench), you can take a bunch of palm fronds and slap ’em together so the rain and wind doesn’t get you (climate & weather provided), you can dig a coffin sized trench in the snow (about 5 ft down), then cut in to the snow laterally and sleep in there (protection & warmth!), or you can do like Bear Grills and just sleep in hotels. (Bet you didn’t know I was such an outdoorsy guy and what not given my amazing manicure, huh?). Well these Makeshift Shelters are less earthy, but just as warm as the snow coffin. The D.C. foursome released their first full-length album, Something So Personal, last year to some heavy praise from folks like The World Is A Beautiful Place. They’ve been compared to Candy Hearts and even MCS and TBS, but to me it’s their slower cuts that bring it all together. Their second track “(This Song is Definitely Not About A Boy)” is really fun and catchy and spiteful (gotta love spiteful lyrics “i was pretty young and i was pretty dumb// because somehow you convinced me you were great”), and “Lighter fluid” are real highlights, although the whole album is pretty chill. The slower last 3 tracks “Overflowing” and “I’ll Be The One That Comes Around” and “Darkest Nights” really do it for me (ok, maybe I like the whole album :-/). Probably because the title “Darkest Nights” fits in to my earlier Bear Grills motif. And there’s nothing I like more than bringing it all together. RIP Steve Irwin.

Feli Says check it out on SPOTIFY