On Friday at the Great American Music Hall (859 O’Farrell St., San Francisco), Oakland’s Shannon & the Clams celebrate the release of
Gone by the Dawn, a new album featuring some of the group’s finest material to date. “Corvette,” which appeared recently with a music video, sheds rusty teardrop guitar notes like Link Wray, bumps to a glam wallop, and foregrounds the vocal interplay between Shannon Shaw and Cody Blanchard, whose husky lows and siren highs harmonize in spite of the space between. Especially with the video, it’s a sad song, with lyrics about an idealized past that maybe never quite was, which is sort of how the group treats its influences. Shannon & the Clams’ relationship to doo-wop, surf, and girl groups have never been one of emulation, but more of a misremembered nostalgia.
Gone by the Dawn sounds like the group reached back for voices in the past, only to find its own.
— Sam Lefebvre