Polica - Shulamith (2LP)

Poliça’s second album, Shulamith, arrived in October 2013 with the kind of confidence bands usually spend years trying to fake. Minneapolis might not scream synth‑soul hotbed, but this lot had already carved a sound that felt both nocturnal and unmistakably theirs. Channy Leaneagh’s voice, shot through with autotune and harmoniser stacks, is the obvious hook, yet it’s the engine room that keeps you coming back. Two drummers, Drew Christopherson and Ben Ivascu, lock into patterns that tumble over each other without ever getting messy, while Chris Bierden’s bass slides around their grooves like oil on water. Producer Ryan Olson, also of Gayngs, keeps the palette spare and icy, so the shimmer has space to linger.

The title nods to Shulamith Firestone, the radical feminist whose book The Dialectic of Sex shook up ideas about gender and power in 1970. Leaneagh talked about Firestone’s writing as a spark rather than a doctrine, and you can hear that tension in the songs. Desire and control, softness and steel. Nothing here is didactic, but the atmosphere is politic in its own way, a chill room where intimacy and autonomy negotiate under neon light.

“Tiff” is the headline moment, partly because Justin Vernon turns up to tangle his voice with Leaneagh’s. He doesn’t overshadow her, though. The duet plays like a mirror scene in a thriller, two perspectives smearing into one as synths glow and the drums pump like a panic attack. “Chain My Name” comes on springy and bright by comparison, a little dance‑floor sugar that still has a bite in the lyric. If you’re crate digging for Poliça vinyl, those two cuts will sell you on the spot, but the deeper listens make Shulamith stick.

“I Need $” is the sleeper. It’s sleek on the surface, yet there’s a weight behind the hook that hints at late‑night decision making. “Very Cruel” tightens the screws with clipped percussion and a vocal that floats just out of reach, like a conversation you can’t quite finish. “Warrior Lord” stretches out, letting the drums breathe while synths flicker like faulty fluorescent tubes. Across the record, the production resists the obvious payoff. Choruses sneak in through side doors, and the thrill sits in texture as much as tune.

Leaneagh’s processed vocal is the band’s most divisive move, but on Shulamith it feels essential to the writing. The effects aren’t there to hide anything. Instead they exaggerate the fractures: human breath, digital sheen, a stack of harmonies that sound like a single person arguing with herself. In a scene flooded with plug‑in gloss, Poliça turn the treatment into an instrument, and it’s hard to imagine these songs any other way.

A bit of context helps. The debut, Give You the Ghost, announced the project in 2012, but Shulamith tightened the bolts. The low end hits harder, the snare drums snap with more purpose, and the melodies carry a deeper ache. You can hear the live band’s discipline in the way these grooves sit, which is rare for a record that leans so heavily on synthesisers. It’s also hard to ignore the Minneapolis DNA running under it all, a town where R&B and art‑pop have rubbed shoulders for decades. If you ever caught Poliça in a small room during this era, the album makes instant sense. The dual kits weren’t a gimmick. They were the show.

Critics clocked the step up at the time, and fans did too. It’s the record you point to when someone asks what Poliça actually sounds like. If you’re hunting Shulamith vinyl, you’ll want a clean pressing to catch the subtleties, especially the way the toms bloom and the sub‑bass rolls under “Tiff.” It’s a good gateway drug if you plan to buy Poliça records online, since it sits neatly between the more spectral debut and the heavier swings they took later.

For collectors, Poliça albums on vinyl tend to reward repeat spins, and this one is no exception. The artwork is stark and a little unsettling, which suits the music’s cool skin‑on‑teeth feel. In a Melbourne record store or anywhere people still browse with their hands, it’s the sleeve that stops you, then the sonics that seal the deal. If you’re in the habit of supporting local shops that deal in vinyl records Australia wide, this album belongs in that stack of night‑drive favourites. It’s sleek, bruised, and quietly defiant, and ten years on it still sounds like a private after‑hours world you can step into whenever you need a bit of shadow with your shine.