The Tunnel "Shudder" LP

With stabs of growling bass, a discordant peal of guitar, and the robotic thump of a floortom, Shudder's title track launches into being, setting the stage for frontman JeffWagner's unmistakable voice – a sinister croon, caked in distortion and sleaze.Bearing traces of such pompadoured antiheroes as Nick Cave, Wagner's dark andtheatrical twang is offset by the band's mechanized throb. These two energies – thesultry noir and the cold machinery – grind against each other and create the sparks thatare The Tunnel.The glorious clash of styles can be depicted in many ways. A 2020 review from WhiteLight/White Heat saw it as a mix of "seedy primeval swampy muddy groove" and"industrialized noise racket" and dropped a flurry of names, from The BirthdayParty to Big Black.A line might also be drawn to a certain circle of '90s indie rockers – Girls AgainstBoys, Six Finger Satellite, and Jon Spencer Blues Explosion among them –whose noise rock assaults were laced to varying degrees with young-Elvis