Six years is a long time to wait. The Sh-Booms have ended it with “This Is a Test,” the title track from their new EP ‘This Is a Test,’ out now digitally and on limited 12″ vinyl. It’s the Orlando nine-piece’s first recorded music since 2019, and it lands with a sound that’s moved well past where they left off.
The single runs over six and a half minutes. Bandleader and bassist Alfred Ruiz describes it as “a sci-fi vision of two astronauts on a collision course in the cosmic ocean,” where euphoric intergalactic love collides with a mission that threatens everything. It’s a premise that sounds ambitious on paper, and the track earns it.
New Wave textures, post-punk lock-grooves, funk-driven vocoder passages, and widescreen space-rock builds all share space inside one song. There’s dancefloor urgency running underneath cinematic scale, and the combination works. Flood Magazine put it plainly, drawing comparisons to Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings, Amy Winehouse, and Alabama Shakes.
Production came from Grammy-nominated engineer Alan Armitage (Boyz II Men) at his Orlando studio The Snake Arcade. Grammy Award-winner Emily Lazar (Beck, Vampire Weekend, Minus the Bear) handled mastering at The Lodge in New York. The technical pedigree behind this record is serious.
The Sh-Booms formed out of Orlando’s underground scene with Ruiz pushing the band toward a sound built around movement and communal energy. Vocalist Brenda Radney, previously signed to Justin Timberlake’s Tennman Records, joined in 2015 and shifted the band’s trajectory sharply upward. Festival appearances followed, along with shared stages with The Roots, Of Montreal, KRS-One, and a mini-tour with The B-52’s.
When 2020 shut everything down, the band regrouped at The Snake Arcade and went deeper. Soul foundations got layered with psychedelia, post-punk, New Wave, synth textures, and art-pop experimentation. ‘This Is a Test’ is what came out of that process, and it reflects every bit of that stretch.
The EP is out now digitally. The limited 12″ vinyl is available now everywhere. Pre-save and streaming at https://thesh-booms.hearnow.com
‘This Is a Test’ EP Track Listing:
Side A
- Love of a Ghost (Shivvvers)
- This Is a Test
Side B
- Broken Open
- Sin & The City (Heavy Weather)