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As the punkabilly guitar riffs flow thick and fast and the steady drumbeats keep things grounded, singer Laurence sings out in a voice with more than a slight nod towards glam rock excess. Like David Bowie fronting The Libertines produced by The Dead Kennedies, Shard make a noise that sounds like a three way pile up between glam, punk and pop.
MAKE ME BUTTERFLY, announces their presence as a band capable of producing mini epics with spiky guitars and hook laden melodies. Guitars are propelled at full pelt, only slowing down for a mid song breakdown while Laurence injects all the star presence and wounded cool you need to keep things interesting. The bouncier guitar swing of DIE HAPPY PICNIC, comes on like early Manics jamming with Megadeth, punk attitude with added metal riffs and guitar squeals. Amidst the chaos though, Shard still manage to drop in a sweetly melodic chorus or two to keep the pop kids happy.
Steering from the dark and intense to lightweight and airy, LE PETIT NOIR, floats along on jazzy guitar chords and synth blasts that are more Belle And Sebastian than anything else. With a delicate warmth and compassion, there's an air that there's a whole lot more to this band than first meets the eye.
Flowing from punk to glam to metal to pop, in the space of three short songs is a sure sign that a band is worthy of your attention. Shard blend the genres with style, keeping a constant glam rock cool but dropping in enough style changes and shifts to never let you get bored. Brimming with menace one minute and smiling sweetly at you the next, Shard parade their schizophrenic musical tendencies with style.

Shard are a band from Hitchin. Actually forget I said that. It's not true but it's basically irrelevant. If Hitchin was a parallel universe, where the language was glamour and the currency was glitter and the sky rained sex and art, then maybe it would be worth mentioning. For this is the world Shard created and then populated when their metal disco pop art pop captured the heart of every eyelinered misfit in town. A burgeoning local following inspired the band to export their manifesto nationally by way of a self released album, InPerfection, and a tour than spanned the second half of 2004. Shard woke up in 2005 and found they'd grown muscles out on the road.
Their new sinew is rawly evident on their latest studio recordings. Cure producer David M. Allen took the helm in documenting this latest chapter in seedy teenage angst, alongside glamorous rock icon Mr David Ryder-Prangley.
The record was mixed by cutting edge rock supremo Mark Williams and blessed by the London emisary of the Dalai Lama. No really.
You wait for a glamorous pop star for ages and then five come along at once:
Jon, Drums, hooligan vocals - A child prodigy earmarked for the royal college of music since the age of five. Then Joey Ramone intervened and taught John how to get stupid. John holds the patents on many contemporary hairstyles - including the Bravery's.
Charlie, Bass, angelic vocals - Brought up by jazz musicians on a CND commune; she spent her childhood chained to the fence of a nuclear power station. Poor girl thought a feather boa was a kind of reptile until David Bowie enlightened her. Still she can glow in the dark, apparently.
John, Guitar, hidden vocals - The most feared sexual predator in Hertfordshire. At 16 he'd already been run out of three towns in the country by puritanical lynch mobs. Billy Corgan led him to a place where his sleaze god persona would be celebrated not persecuted.
Laurence, lead vox, Candy Apple Guitar - This son of a beauty queen perfected his pout before he could walk. He could have had a hell of a career as an arch narcissist or perhaps a politician. Fortunately Ian Curtis turned Laurence's languid eyes into shark infested lagoons.
Haz, guitar, keys, Synthentics - An avid fan of deconstruction and other pot-modern pastimes Haz truly is the Brian Jones of the band. Like Brian he is blessed with both versatility and a mysterious spiritual nature. He floats better than Brian though. We've tested it.
When I asked Laurence what he thought about Shard's role in the world he
replied:
"Some people take the strongest and most negative emotions - lust, jealousy, loss and endow them with beauty. I take beauty and reveal its heart of darkness. Even when life's a bed of roses, thorns, like shards of glass, lie deeper still."
Drew Richards, April 2005

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