Shiv-r (pronounced the same as 'shiver') are an Australian industrial band from Sydney. Comprised of founding members Lee Bulig, Pete Crane and Pete's wife, Wendy, Shiv-r have been slowly gaining popularity due to tours with bands such as Hanzel und Gretyl, Combichrist and Hocico. Their music is dark, rough and insanely catchy, blending industrial and rock to create a chaotic result of musical craziness. The name has been explained as their wanting to make music that would make people shiver (and shake them out of their stupor).
See also The Crystalline Effect.
Members:
- Kong (Ben Lee Bulig)- theremins, chaos, melodies
- Virul3nt (Pete Crane)- beats, vocals, lyrics and more chaos
- Straylight (Wendy Crane)- keyboards, live backing vocals (and yet more chaos)
- M4RC- live drums
Discography:
- Parasite EP (2008)
- Hold My Hand (2010)
- Incision EP (2010)
- This World Erase (2011)
- Shadow Between Worlds (2013)
- Wax Wings Will Burn (2014)
- Requiem Of The Hyperreal (2017)
Hold my hand! Trope my skin!
- Album Title Drop:
- Hold My Hand is a line from “The End Part 1” (“Hold my hand, scar my skin, broken as we wait for the end”).
- "Lingerie" drops it too ("Hold my hand, don't want to leave/all we break is all we need").
- Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick:
- Their requirements for playing Kinetik were completely ordinary excepting a sharp note stating that should they be followed by a DJ, said DJ could not play anything by The Prodigy as their first song (on the grounds that nobody sounds good next to the Prodigy).
- When asked who he'd want to collaborate with if he had the chance, Pete said that he wouldn't want to collaborate with some of his favourite bands, like IAMX, because trying to possess something beautiful instead of just admiring it is like coming in someone's face... it ruins the magic.
- Country Matters: Ben had a very amusing one with his review
of the SPL Kultube.Ben: I thought the name was pronounced similar to ‘kull-tube’ [...] Anyway, the first friend I talked to about this unit was Thai. For Thai’s (though, I’m no expert), “L” sounds are sometimes interchangeable with “N”, so via a combination of that and my mispronunciation, it became something more like “Cunt-Tube”. I like it, and henceforth I will refer to this baby as my Cunt-Tube for the remainder of this review. How can you resist phrases like “the Cunt’s hot sticky tube adds an extra layer of thick cream to the mix’? - Darker and Edgier: The Parasite EP mainly consisted of songs that were slower and less aggressive than Hold My Hand.
- Dark Is Not Evil:
- Lee has a crazy sense of humour, Pete's a very friendly person, and Wendy is incredibly nice and sociable.
- Shiv-r as a whole compared to The Crystalline Effect. One is industrial, the other electronic. Comparing the two, it's a little hard to believe that the same person could have done most of the music for both.
- Everyone Went to School Together: Pete and Ben were friends in high school.
- Identical Stranger: Inverted- Pete once described deadmau5 as being him, but a version of him who took the opposite choice in every decision Pete ever made.
- Kindhearted Cat Lover: Pete loves cats, and wants one so much he dreams about them.
- New Sound Album: Hold My Hand was industrial rock, whereas This World Erase was more industrial pop-rock. Wax Wings Will Burn was inspired by rap.
- Shout-Out: The stage names: 'Kong' is a shout out to King Kong, and 'Virul3nt' is a shout out to the debut album of trance band Die My Darling.
- Singing Voice Dissonance: Pete’s voice alternates from fairly high and clear (“Blood Spatter”, “Suffer”) to low and husky (“Arise”, “This Fix”) and occasionally alternates between them (“Pharmaceutical Grade”, “Hollow Mask”). Neither is anything like his speaking voice.
- Stage Names:
- Kong (Ben), Virul3nt (Pete) and Straylight (Wendy).
- Ben originally went by his middle name, Lee, thinking that he could use his middle name for music-related purposes and his first name for job purposes, but it eventually got confusing enough that he just stopped using Lee.
- Xtreme Kool Letterz: The band’s name itself (it’s just pronounced like ‘shiver’) and Pete’s stage name, Virul3nt.
