There’s a peculiar tension running through The Shape, the self-titled debut from the New Jersey-and-Toronto trio of the same name—an emotional voltage that feels equally at home on cold concrete as it does in the glow of a bedroom monitor. The album introduces a band that treats genre less as a boundary than as raw material to be deconstructed and reassembled with precision, gloss, and an undercurrent of unease.
The Shape—comprised of Kevin Iavaroni (vocals), Ben Waugh (guitar), and Autumn Easterbrook (synth)—made their first mark with 2023’s Introducing… EP, a promising glimpse at their ability to fuse sharp pop instincts with an outsider’s sense of intensity. On their debut LP, they push that formula further, pairing glistening synthetic melodies with lyrics that ache, stretch, and snarl beneath the surface. The record was mastered by Ryan Santos Phillips at Lux Perpetua NYC, whose atmospheric touch reinforces the band’s dual commitment to clarity and mystery.
What sets The Shape apart isn’t just the synthesis of their influences—it’s the emotional texture of the songs themselves. There’s a kind of heart-on-sleeve theatricality here, a vocal vulnerability that tilts closer to the singed melodrama of early 2000s alternative than to the detached cool typically associated with synth-pop. But rather than feeling like a mismatch, that contrast becomes the band’s secret weapon: pop songs that are as likely to break you open as they are to get stuck in your head.
Though their sound is rooted in icy electronics, the band’s foundation is pure sweat and volume. Members of The Shape cut their teeth in the hardcore scene and have shared the stage with acts like Terror and Drain—an unlikely pedigree that injects their songs with a physicality and immediacy that’s hard to fake. The Shape doesn’t try to revive the past or pander to the present. It just burns through both with uncommon clarity.
Outside Looking In
Catacombs
