The origins of Unstable Shapes trace back to St. Paul’s Palace Theatre in 2019. After the Massive Attack show that September, a trio of buddies slopped down beers and, like so many beer-slopping buddies before them, hatched the sort of audacious plan that goes nowhere 97% of the time: Let’s start a band.
"Obviously we don't sound anything like Massive Attack," guitarist Mitch Gustafson says. "Later we found out the other two members, who we didn't know yet, were also at the show. Then COVID happened."
And babies happened. And divorces happened. And deaths happened. And day jobs continued to happen.
But the pitch from eventual vocalist Andrew Cahak—My Bloody Valentine meets ...And You Will Know Us by the Trail of Dead meets Sonic Youth—proved sticky in the minds of each eventual member. Technically, Unstable Shapes formed in the winter of ‘19, but the post-hardcore quintet didn’t play their first shows until this past February.
“This band is really born out of our friendship,” says Cahak, who performed standup comedy locally for a decade before pivoting to music. “We’ve all been through so much stuff during the course of this band; we’re tightly knit. We’re all in our late 30s and early 40s, and for men of a certain age, it’s hard to start being friends with people.”
Unstable Shapes have dropped three tracks throughout 2024, including the Fugazi-ish “Feral Joy,” the Dismemberment Plan-y “Local Sphinx,” and the slashing and soaring “Glass Ladder,” which features lyrical observations like “They don’t make shark attacks like they used to/They don’t make black holes like they used to.”
Cahak says the instrumental faction of the band—Gustafson, plus fellow guitarist Ryan Jaroscak, bassist Kevin Hurley, and drummer James Taylor, the latter of whom drums for and manages Picked to Click peer Lamaar—more or less bring in the final product. The frontman then wails over tracks with the fervor of Fucked Up’s Damian Abraham or Les Savy Fav’s Tim Harrington. “It’s kinda like they bake the cake, and then I come in at the end and frost it,” he explains.
"The debut record is all done..." Cahak says, pausing.
So when is it coming out?
"That's a great question," Gustafson says, adding that the band is currently shopping it to labels and fine-tuning things like artwork.
Given their families and non-musical careers, touring the forthcoming album might prove tricky, but regional weekend jaunts are on the table.
"And I mean, if Unwound needs us to open for them for a couple weeks, we'd figure something out," Cahak says with a chuckle.
Explore the entire Picked to Click class of 2024 below.
