The Shepherd and the Wolf is the first release from SHAMUS, a new project from Shamus Currie (The Sheepdogs, BROS). A concept album as rock opera, it mines the vein created by prog giants Uriah Heep, Pink Floyd, and King Crimson. A wolf howls his hunger at the moon. A shepherd’s grip tightens on his crook. The businessmen who’ve just swindled the shepherd toast each other. Thus begins the story-cycle of The Shepherd and the Wolf.
Under the glow of the Wolf Moon, when the celestial body in its plenilunar brilliance compels the wild animals of the woods to throw their heads back and howl, SHAMUS will be releasing their first single, “Days of High Adventure” from their new album, The Shepherd and the Wolf, available everywhere on February 24.
“The song is the culmination of a few different riffs that had been rattling around my head for a while”, says bandleader Shamus Currie. “I’m a big fan of Edgar Winter’s song “Frankenstein” which is famously a collection of riffs stitched together in the studio. I wanted to create a similar musical patchwork, but slower and moodier. The song is an introduction to the Shepherd character, but also to the greater world of the album in general. It’s a ‘story’ song more than it is about any specific feeling. I tried to convey a grand sense of world creation with the organ introduction.”
With a title cribbed from the opening minutes of Conan the Barbarian (“Let me tell you of the days of high adventure!”), SHAMUS’s new song doesn’t so much welcome the listener into the world of The Shepherd and The Wolf as kick down the door. THIS is the sound of the battering ram on the castle gates. THIS is the sound of a thousand swords beat against a thousand shields. Over guitar licks that hearken to that late seventies era of pure, unabashed riffage and overheated organ, Currie’s vocals swagger. Yes, the opener of the album – but more, it serves as a call to adventure amidst peril and risk. Will you heed it?
Currie is the keyboardist for the Juno award-winning, platinum-selling Canadian rock band The Sheepdogs and co-founder of classic rock pop duo BROS (their single “Tell Me” has been synced by ESPN US, SportsNet, Hockey Night in Canada, Toronto Blue Jays, and is the theme music for CBC’s q.)The album represents his first foray into solo territory, stepping into the light to tell a tale of a Shepherd who finds himself caught between a Wolf, and the crooks who swindled him. The story is relayed in the form of a rock opera built on the bandleader’s twin passions of high fantasy and progressive rock with Currie voicing the part of the Shepherd and drummer Matt Warry-Smith (Union Duke) handling the part of the Wolf. Filling out the group is award-winning musician Soren Nissen, embodying the role of The Giant in both stature and bass-playing.
That is not all. Accompanying the release of The Shepherd and the Wolf will be a card game of the same name. With game design by Josh Bennett, who formerly worked with Wizards of the Coast (Magic: The Gathering, etc) and illustrated in a style that recalls the gloriously pulpy works of Boris Vallejo and Frank Frazetta, the game will lead the listener deeper into the world SHAMUS has created, allowing the player to experience the travails of the Shepherd on his heroic journey against the ungovernable forces of carnage and greed.
Sacramento’s K-ZAP 93.3 FM plays Shamus. All part of 50 years of Rock, Blues and More, 24-7 on our station’s stream at K-ZAP.ORG/LISTEN/
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