The healing hand and surgeon’s scalpel are intertwined on Shepherds’ new album ​Insignificant Whip​. The art-rock masterpiece encases the band’s vulnerable wisdom in flighty melodies that burn with intimacy and fragility as singer/lyricists Jonathan Merenivitch and Adrian Benedykt Świtoń address everything from toxic masculinity and Catholic guilt to Youtube comments and Tupac Shakur. Since their 2011 EP ​Holy Stain,​ the band have received accolades for their taut analyses of social ills and the resulting strain on body and mind, but even the skeletal no-wave that defined their early sound was bound with, in the broadest sense of the word, soul. The band’s ability to confront their deepest insecurities and doubts is more than simple catharsis, it serves to illuminate deeper questions of existence and identity, and frame them in context of systemic oppression, discrimination, and isolation. The band's expansive new LP "Insignificant Whip" will be released on Arrowhawk Records in 2019

Programming descriptions are generated by participants and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of SXSW.