Seamlessly combining pop-punk melodies with the delicate, twinkling guitar sounds characteristic of Midwest emo, Klaipeda, Lithuania based The Shouting Dolls just released their new EP “Kids In The Yard“, a unique blend of styles that is both vulnerable and relatable. The band’s frontman, Eddie, draws inspiration from personal experiences and real-life situations to craft lyrics that resonate with their audience. Camping in Alaska, Jimmy Eat World, The Wonder Years, and Hot Mulligan serve as some of the band’s primary influences.
The band self-produced their EP “Kids In The Yard”, with the band members handling all engineering and mixing duties. The mastering process was entrusted to a local engineer, Pavel Danniels, whom the band speaks highly of. Interestingly, the guitars, vocals, and mixing were done by Eddie in his small apartment, often in between relaxing on his couch, eating pizza, and playing PlayStation. This DIY approach adds a touch of nostalgia to the album, making it all the more memorable.
Today, we’re giving it a closer look, with a deep track by track dive into its content and details behind its creative process.
The Shouting Dolls’ new EP features an eye-catching cover art that went through a lengthy creative process before its finalization. Despite the band’s initial struggles to find the right photo, they eventually stumbled upon an old picture that was taken by Eddie’s friend during the pandemic. Eddie recalled how he found the perfect photo by browsing through his phone and discovering a photo from his and his friend’s experimental photography phase during the pandemic. They would randomly take pictures in various locations, edit them, and send them to each other for feedback.
The band added their signature mascot, “the duck,” to the photo and the final result was a unique and tongue-in-cheeck cover art. Although the creative process was unexpected, the band’s persistence paid off as they ultimately found the perfect image to complement their music.
Words by the band:
Oh barf (Music Makes You Feel)
The intro to the EP and to be honest it was the hardest thing to get right because from the start. I knew we wanted to have a “midwest emo, twinkly riff, sitcom soundtrack” style intro to set the tone of the EP. I think Eddie tried everything from “The Office” to “Dragon Ball”. But his girlfriend remembered this one part from “Regular Show” that just the perfect match. I took such a long time to filter out the background music from the clip, but we knew we had to use this it was just too perfect and funny not to!
Kids in the Yard
The title track for the EP and by far the hardest one to record, as we made and produced this song specifically for the EP. I think we re-did the guitars about 4 times before we got every part right. The lyrics focus on the fact that even though you’re all grown up and you feel you’re rotting away in your adult life, you should not mourn your child hood, but always remain a kid at heart enjoying life with the same enthusiasm and adventures spirit of a child. The instrumental mainly combines layer guitar clean guitar riffs with catchy distorted hooks. The vocals are mostly clean with a scream’o vocals layer in the background for that “post-hardcore” vibe. I think this helps add some emotion to the the track and translate the message in more heart felt way.
Stay Together
The most “Mall Emo” emo sounding track on the EP, with inspirations ranging from “modern baseball” and “Taking back Sunday”. The track features distorted rhythm guitars and clean lead hooks with a little bit of “midwest emo” twinkle sprinkled in between. Lyrically most listeners can always remember that one relation past or current where the romantic vibes felt like you were reliving your favourite romcom and you just wanted it have a happy ever after “just like in the movies” hence the title stay together.
The vocals on this one are quite melodic and the challenge was to make the chorus stand out from the verse and it is essentially sang in one register without any big notes in the chorus. This is where vocal harmonies came very handy and it was really hard to created something that would compliment the catchiness of the chorus. Also screaming was again used together with main line to make the end chorus hit just that much harder.
Stuck in the Motion
Story time! This song was written from a harmony that Eddie and I’m not joking recorded while taking a shower. “It’s the funniest thing I had an idea while in the shower took my phone recorded it” ran straight out to my guitar and started applying the melody to any random chords I could think of”. Also this is one of the songs that has gone through a lot changes before being recorded and out bassist Max always insisted on it being “something special”.
A very upbeat song that starts straight up pop-punk and goes to half time really fast. I think having clean guitars and twinkly lead’s really goes well with the aggressive style of the drums. It would be much easier to make something distorted and aggressive sound good with this style of drumming, but in our opinion the melodic nature of the guitar combined with the aggressiveness of the drums is what makes this song stand out! Lyric wise it’s about being stuck in life. It’s one of those if attempt to make any change in my life because I’m afraid to fail. So this song is about making the first step and realising that failure is just part of the process hence the line “To Find my Place in Outer Space”.
Rainfall
This is the very first song we wrote as a band and is also the most pop-punk song of the EP. I think it has survived all of our line-up changes, sound and style searching phases and I really don’t know how every one seems to know the lyrics. The vocals are straight up pop-punk with Dan Campbell’s vocal delivery being the most influential on Eddies vocals. The guitars are a mix of dirty punk bass, combined with straight up driven guitars that deliver catchy hook upon catchy hook.
The lyrics are based on the time Eddie spent living in London and have been sitting in his notepad for years. “I was studying in London at the time, working as bartender to make some money for rent and food, taking a 2 hour buss home every nigh I had a lot of time to write lyrics. I wrote this one on one of the journeys home, it’s basically living in foreign country where there are more opportunities, but there is always that feeling of alienation and wanting to come back home, I think the line “And the ghost comes out of me” is very important as it when I wrote and sang this line that I knew I wanted to go back home”.
