Bones Shredder‘s debut solo effort is an intensely charming look into multi-instrumentalist Randy Moore’s spooky little world.
Release date: September 19, 2025 | Sunken Teeth Records | Instagram | Twitter | YouTube | Bandcamp
I’ve watched an enormous amount of the various Berserk adaptations in the last year. Just – stick with me for a second. I’ve found I have two very distinct approaches to coping with utterly bleak shit. One of them is to lean into that bleakness, that anger and sadness and consuming malaise, and entertain myself with media that highlights these feelings. Hence: Berserk, which explores an objectively horrible and violent world that feels a little too much like a mirror to our own.
The other approach is to just enjoy something fucking fun.
Morbid Little Thing is exactly that. The debut LP from Bay Area act Bones Shredder is an exceedingly good time, hooky as anything, and while ‘fun’ may seem a little dismissive for a genuinely good album, I’m not sure how else to describe it. ‘Cute’ is diminutive and ‘easy’ sounds like a dig. This album is neither of those. It is a delight to experience, a nostalgia trip that doesn’t feel cheap or unearned, an exploration of failed relationships and figuring out who you are, draped in vintage horror imagery. It’s god damn fun.
You may be asking yourself who the fuck Bones Shredder is. That’s a bit comical considering you have likely heard his – Randy Moore’s, that is – super tight guitar playing before. His resume could be a Wikipedia page, but a quick recap: Get Married, Spiritworld, both Alkaline Trio side projects (Dan Andriano & The Bygones, Lektron), it goes on. Notably, Moore started as the touring rhythm guitarist for Ghost a few years ago, which is likely the underwriter for this album, as that introduced him to a much larger (and much, much scarier) fanbase.
The primary sonic influence for Morbid Little Thing according to both Moore himself and anyone with ears is Weezer. Weezer gets their fair share of flack from the internet, and famously, their own fans, but at the end of the day, we all shelled out for that Blue Album 30th anniversary box set, so it’s clear they occupy an important space in the collective musical consciousness. However, there are some really intriguing layers of auditory nostalgia on this record. While the overarching sound may be mid-’90s à la Green Day’s Dookie, there’s also a huge amount of A Hard Day’s Night ’60s rock ‘n roll happening, as well as flashes of early aughts mainstream pop punk like Yellowcard.
Lead single “Daylight” captures all of these influences well – fuzzy guitar, sock-hop drums, use of ‘my darling’ in the chorus – and the accompanying music video encapsulates the aforementioned capital-f Fun. It’s a bit theatrical and a bit silly, but it made me smile, and what’s the point if not that? “Pulling Teeth” is another good example of the type of retro genre-blending present on this album, and gives Moore a chance to flex his songwriting chops. The central guitar hook feels very Midwest emo, building and repeating throughout, and the second half of the chorus goes right back into clap-along ’60s territory. This all underscores lyrics that detail the unique frustrations of a one-sided relationship (‘I’m pulling teeth / It’s all routine‘).
I’ve seen this album referred to as ‘power-pop’ a few times, and while I don’t think that’s inaccurate, that descriptor sort of downplays the rawness, the vulnerable nature, and guitar-driven focus of the record. It feels solidly pop punk to me, but it just so happens to avoid some of the more infamous genre trappings that people now use as identifiers. A big one is the vocals. Moore has some solid pipes and manages to not fall into the notorious singing affect that many vocalists in this sphere employ. “Let Me In” really gives him a chance to show off a bit, both belting out soaring refrains and layering sweet, silky little falsetto harmonies.
I don’t know if we super needed The Beatles cover. It’s by no means bad, as technically competent and charismatic as the rest of this album, with some very nice vocal harmonies from Dog Party‘s Lucy Giles. But a debut is the chance to present the concentrated form of what the project is trying to achieve. Morbid Little Thing is aptly named in that it’s pretty short, and spending one out of ten tracks (another of which is an instrumental interlude) on a cover doesn’t do a ton to tell me about who Moore is as an artist in his own right. I’d have liked to have heard another song like album closer “Wasted Days”, the longest and most sonically diverse track that really lets him, well, shred.
Morbid Little Thing is impressive for a lot of reasons, but an important one I keep coming back to is that it feels like a very tight exercise in line-walking. It’s earnest, but not twee; straightforward, but not boring; cohesive, but not repetitive; youthful, but not juvenile. It is nicely produced, but not so glossy it feels fake or contrived. The lyrics feel introspective and confessional, neither too generic like they were spawned in a K-pop factory nor too specific that it feels like the audience is simply a vessel for the artist to trauma-dump into. The overall spookiness gives the record a consistent emotional (and sometimes punny) theme, but it never leans too far into hokey rockabilly Halloween album territory. That is all kind of insane to pull off on the first solo effort by a guy who is barely 30 and has spent a decade playing the often thankless role of hired gun. Color me wildly charmed.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go lie down in my room and listen to that Blue Album box set while the 1931 Dracula plays silently on my CRT in the background. For fun!
