Reviewed by Ian Phillips.
By Sheppard, Kaos Management, 2020.
The Sheppard siblings from Brisbane are embarking on a musical journey that will see them release a new single each month and culminate in an album by the end of the year.
They are not the only band to have hit on this formula. It has been done by quite a few artists over the past couple of years and has the advantage of picking up single buyers throughout the year and album buyers once the album is completed.
Sheppard has been around for quite some time. They formed in 2009 and released their first album, Bombs Away, in 2014. It reached #2 on the ARIA Albums chart and achieved Gold Record status. Their follow-up album, Watching the Sky, (2018) went one better by debuting at #1.
The new album really began in October 2019 with the release of their single Die Young which was followed by Phoenix in January 2020.
Die Young was a candid comment about the band nearly breaking up where the latest single, Don’t Believe In Love (which was released just after Valentine’s Day) is a move away from the introspection of writing about internal band troubles to the universal issues of love and broken hearts.
George Sheppard calls Don’t Believe In Love, an ‘anti-love’ song. He comments “When it doesn’t go right, love can hurt us like nothing else can.” It’s a universal theme with which we can all agree.
Sheppard are really one of Australia’s pop success stories. Bombs Away was nominated for seven ARIAs and it debuted in the American Billboard Top 200 at #31, which is an outstanding effort.
They’ve got a huge international following, supported Justin Bieber on his Australian and NZ tours, and they even participated in the 2019 Eurovision – Australia Decides competition, where they performed their song On My Way.
Don’t Believe in Love is the first song issued as part of this new album development that comes with an accompanying video. All other monthly releases this year will follow suit.
