When Shannon McArdle left her band, the Mendoza Line, in 2007, she was also leaving behind a marriage to fellow Mendoza Line member Timothy Bracy. Along with a cast of contributors, the Mendoza Line recorded a remarkable body of work that wrestled with the intoxication of life and love on the edge of the new millennium. Shannon met Timothy in the late 90s along with an early incarnation of the Mendoza Line in Athens Georgia, and made the move with them to New York City for better or for worse as they established themselves as a rollicking well-read rock band with a love for the Replacements, Bob Dylan, and the Velvet Underground. After four albums with the group and another project with Bracy called Slow Dazzle, Shannon is heading out on her own with an unflinching report from the frontlines of divorce. Shannon McArdle in Summer of the Whore is a unique, unflinching view of her life in the summer of 2007, finally ready for delivery in the summer of 2008. Collaborating on arrangements with former ML alum Adam D Gold, the album is a sparse, haunted affair that delivers a wide variety of moods and textures. Shannon McArdle's latest is not the feel-good album of the year, but it is an honest, singular work, rich in melody and the occasional bitter smile. Sometimes a season seems to last a very long time, but soon the air and the trees, and maybe we change without effort. Fortunately for her listeners, Ms. McArdle captured the Summer of the Whore before it passed her by.
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