Hot Water Music has been making music for what seems like an eternity, and have also broken up and got back together a million times. The formula for their signature punk rock flair has changed a lot, just outside of production value alone, but for some bands, changing your formula constantly doesn’t always work. With Shake Up the Shadows, we get five more tracks that carry that poise and swagger the band’s legacy has crafted, and HWM finds themselves even higher in the upper echelons of punk rock. The only downside to these songs is that while they bolster the band’s discography, they won’t help much for the band in the long run.

First, there’s a lot to unpack in this extended play only in that there are a lot of genres clashing here. The Bouncing Souls drummer George Rebelo brings some of TBS’s signature pop-punk bounce into the composition, and there’s a bit of a folk influence (think Bob Dylan, Eric Springsteen) that comes in the form of Chuck Ragan’s signature raspy vocal delivery. Because of these genres seemingly coming together, some of the music sounds a little unorthodox, such as the title song “Shake Up the Shadows”, which feels like it was two separate songs put together into one. The best forms of synthesizing all the pieces into one cohesive work are displayed on “Rebellion Story” and “Afar and Away”, the last two songs on the project. Featuring sing-along choruses and some guitar solos, the songs wouldn’t feel out of place on a late-80s or early-90s hard rock record.

Lyrically, Ragan nails it out of the park and is able to convey a lot of emotion using his soulful voice to bring his words to life. Ranging from fairly straightforward topics such as rising up after being overwhelmed to personal ones, such as the opener “By Any Means”, which deals with a friend who is battling cancer, the content of the record is able to span a lot of different subjects in just under fifteen minutes. It is one of the stronger lyrical presences in HWM’s discography, and with the amount of music on the record, made it hard for there to be filler. Luckily, Ragan recognized that and doubled down on the penmanship. The melodies that Ragan wrote were also a highlight of the EP. Many times, I felt like I should know the words so I could sing along. I have a feeling these songs will do well in a live setting.

As I said before, there’s been many bands that have changed their sound that either flamed out or had to revert to an earlier sound to regain notoriety or even relevance (looking at you, We Came as Romans). A band that is able to change their sound repeatedly over several years (and in HWM’s case, decades), is able to recognize what the current trends are, what can be taken advantage of, and what doesn’t work after so long. The songs on Shake Up the Shadows work, but I think that the mark was missed on current trends. If this EP was released in a time period of about 2009-2012, I feel it would fare better in my eyes. For now, though, SUTS serves as just another project in a massive catalogue. Nothing more, nothing less.

Rating: 6/10

Favorite Songs: “By Any Means”, “Denatured”, “Rebellion Story”