New Music - Shannon McArdle

If Shannon McArdle wanted to really make it as an artist then she may have done well by leaving The Mendoza Line behind. Don’t get me wrong, I love TML, especially 2002’s slapdash Lost In Revelry, but to stay with a band that’s named after the all time lowest batting average for a full time major league player over the course of a full season (.198, Mario Mendoza, 1979) may have been slightly self-defeating. Well, that and her marriage to bandmate Timothy Bracy dissolved before last year’s 30 Year Low, which didn’t really leave another option. Anyone who was paying attention though over the band’s last 4 albums had to notice McArdle coming into her own - gradually her songs became more and more prominent parts of the albums. Both her singing and songwriting blossomed as well over that time into a strong female presence to supplement, and often overshadow, Bracy’s cracked masculinity.

McArdle’s stepping out this August with her debut solo album, Summer Of The Whore, which, judging from the title and the bio at her new website, was born from a sense of emptiness after that relationship crumbled. “Poison My Cup” gets away from the straight folk-rock arrangements of her former band, and uses her deep, hushed feminine voice to good effect over a more modern sounding bed of sound effects, ambient guitars, heavy drums, and some haunting background vocals. It’s a beautiful and damaged song from a woman who sounds like she’s trying to convince herself she’s okay. She’s playing Union Hall on August 8th, and the CD release show is at the Mercury Lounge August 19.

MP3 :: Poison My Cup
Stream :: This Longing
(from Summer of the Whore. Info @ Bar/None Records)
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And here’s a smattering of McArdle’s songs from The Mendoza Line:

MP3 :: Since I Came
(from 30 Year Low. Buy here)

MP3 :: Mysterious In Black
(from Full Of Light And Full Of Fire. Buy here)

MP3 :: It’s A Long Line
MP3 :: Throw It In The Fire
(from Fortune. Buy here)

MP3 :: The Way Of The Weak
(from Lost In Revelry. Buy here)
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