When Shaun Durkan and Bre Morell first started making music together as Crushed, a project devoted to reimagining the radio friendly alternative rock hits of their youth, they assumed the endeavor would essentially result in two possible outcomes—ridicule or obscurity.
“I didn’t think anyone would ever find out about us, and if they did, they would just make fun of what we were doing,” said Morrell, who is also the lead vocalist of indie goth band Temple of Angels. “But we didn’t care at all. We just wanted to make this kind of music.”
Not only has the music of Crushed not gone unnoticed, it has been a revelation.
The band’s six-song debut EP, “extra life,” has garnered rave reviews from numerous outlets while catapulting the duo into several high-profile performances and festival appearances. Sidenote: the band purposefully uses only lowercase letters in song titles and album names for artistic purposes.
Their latest show will take place on Dec. 7 at the Regency Ballroom, where they will open up for groundbreaking black-metal mavens and former local heroes Deafheaven.
Durkan, who grew up in the Bay Area and is also the chief songwriter for the post-punk band Weekend, and Morrell first connected on Twitter, now known as X.
They were both fans of their respective music outfits, and started exchanging messages on social media, expressing their love for 90s acts like Duncan Sheik and Natalie Imbruglia.
As products of the relatively hip indie rock scene, showing a genuine gratitude for less “cool” acts like Sheik and Imbruglia actually represented a bold move for Morrell and Durkan.
“We were kind of joking about making music like that, because no one seemed to be really tapping into that particular scene,” said Morrell. “I didn’t really think anything of it, but then Shaun wrote the first demo and sent it to me, and I think I sang over it the same night. We had no serious intentions there—we were writing songs and hadn’t even met each other in person yet.”
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Last year, Durkan and Morrell exchanged musical ideas. Durkan provided the sonic template and Morrell added lyrics and vocals. The result of that partnership produced music that had an eerily nostalgic vibe—tunes that were immediately recognizable without sounding derivative.
The songs off “extra life” combine celestial electronica elements with foggy guitar riffs that are familiar and catchy, recalling now-forgotten acts like Jesus Jones, Eagle Eye Cherry and Shawn Mullins. A basic retread of those artists likely wouldn’t have resonated with new audiences, but Durkan layered in an array of samples and strange sonic manipulations, adding an avant-garde twist to traditional pop sounds.
“A lot of the samples are from video games we were really into at the time, and some of them were just taken from YouTube,” said Durkan, who is also finalizing production on Weekend’s long-awaited third album. “They kind of come from everywhere and that’s what I love about them—they add this kind of ‘Z’ axis to the music. They provide a dimensionality to the songs that I don’t think we would have been able to create with instruments. They manage to create this collage of sounds that I think adds to the nostalgia element of the music.”
The lyrics take on that same kind of whimsical sentiment, with both Durkan and Morrell singing about the wonders and pitfalls of young love, each sounding incredibly earnest in their recollections of romance.
Perhaps no song captures that dynamic better than “milksugar.” Behind a trip-hop beat and a crackly sonic backdrop made to feel like a long-lost photograph, Morell sings plaintively “Been wandering lost for years on end/But when you look at, me I am home again.” Instantly, we are all back at high school, swooning over the sight of a crush in the hallway.
Although initially viewed as a passion project with no long-term viability, the immediate and positive response to “extra life”— outlets like Pitchfork, NPR and Dazed wrote laudatory reviews of the EP—has Durkan and Morrel reassessing their plans for the group.
They were recently announced as part of the annual Homesick Festival, a two-day event curated by Anthony Azald of Ceremony, a hardcore band with roots in the North Bay. That fest will take place at the Regency Ballroom on Feb. 2 and 3, and with more than two-dozen songs currently written, Crushed has additional plans to release music and tour next year.
“I think next year it’s safe to say we will be making the rounds quite a bit,” said Morrell. “Nothing is for sur, but if we put a new record out, we will definitely be touring a lot. I think we’re both very excited to see where this goes.”
