Studio 52 is a community artist space located in the heart of Allston, and is proud to support the Boston music scene and local artist community.
Bent Shapes, one of the more beloved guitar-rock bands to come out of the Boston music scene in recent years, have decided to call it a day.
The Somerville group, led by mainstays and longtime collaborators Ben Kosznik (vocals/guitars) and Andy Sadoway (drums), announced that their final show will be a proper year-end rager December 16 at Great Scott in Allston.
The news caps a nearly-decade-long run that began when the band was called Girlfriends, eventually releasing albums via Slumberland and Father/Daughter Records along the way, and pretty much slaying every stage on which they performed. Bent Shapes’ heartfelt appeal was two-fold, a magnetic combination of punk-snaled jangle-pop and Kosznik’s brilliantly sharp lyrical wordplay and social awareness. Their latest, and sadly, last release was 2016’s Wolves Of Want LP, and it was maybe the most slept on album of the year.
This afternoon, they said goodbye alongside the farewell show announcement.
“After over 8 years of basement shows, tours, flexi discs, name changes, membership fluctuations, TV spots, meeting musical heroes, minivan mayhem, and dirty sprites, we’re laying these Shapes to rest,” they write, adding: “We’d like to thank each and every one of you that has had a hand in making this band what it’s been. Thank you for helping us book shows, for playing with us, for working on our gear, for coming out to see us on a weeknight, for letting us sleep on your floors and couches, for buying our records or streaming our songs, for telling your friends about our music. None of the many good times we’ve had would have been possible without you. Extra special thanks to our families, close friends, and loved ones, who have had to both fan the flames of our musical passion/obsession at times and tolerate them at others, particularly to Jerry MacDonald of Oddfellows Recording/Aurora 7 Records, Ian Doerr and Evan Murphy of Love Magnet Studios (f/k/a Mystic Steamship), Jessi Frick of Father/Daughter Records, Elio DeLuca at the Soul Shop, and Mike Schulman of Slumberland Records. You made our dreams come true.”
Joining the Shapes for their stagetime sayonara are Beware the Dangers of a Ghost Scorpion! and Laika’s Orbit, and it’s an Allston Pudding Presents gig. Tickets go on sale Thursday at noon via Bowery Boston, so get on that, and once you wipe away the tears bask in some of the Shapes’ finer musical efforts below.