Review: Shiny Shiny Black invites you to a roaring fireplace with ‘What Stops Time’ EP

Winter brings bitter cold and haunting winds. Straddling the old and new years, it’s a time of great reflection. There’s an innate ache that comes with this deep, honest self-examination. Alt/folk band Shiny Shiny Black rustle up thoughtful musings with their brand new holiday-set EP, What Stops Time. Christmas classic covers are a dime a dozen, but the five-piece sinks their teeth into the lyrics and arrangements with a keenness to bring their own special flavor to centuries-old standards. The piano-soaked “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas,” sprinkled with a bit of doo-wop vocals, gets the EP revving, whereas the late project cut “Winter Wonderland” delivers the winter magic in heavy doses.

With the EP’s namesake, the group glimpses into a conversation about time’s merciless hand over our lives, cruelly judging us and pushing dreams and ambitions into the rearview mirror. There’s no true way to stop time completely, but if you cherish even the mundane moments in your life, you can temporarily hold off its death march. Later, “Some Kind of Christmas” feels like a ray of light penetrating through the gray, swirling winter clouds. “Even when it doesn’t make sense, I’m looking for someone,” Amber Butler sings, ever so sweetly.

When the closing track, “Lights On (for Christmas),” pulses into the eardrums, it casts the listener into an immediate hypnotic state. It’s a trance you never want to snap out of, begging the band to go just a little bit longer. And that’s the lingering sensation of listening to Shiny Shiny Black’s What Stops Time – it should go on for years.

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