The Moon Is In The Wrong Place is the band's most personal record yet. In August 2022, singer and frontwoman Shannon Shaw's world was turned inside out: with mere weeks to go until their wedding, the singer's fiancé Joe Haener, died in a horrific car accident. It was a devastating loss that hit Shannon & The Clams – who were all incredibly close with Haener – with cataclysmic force.
From the shock and trauma of that tragedy comes Shannon & The Clams’ latest album, a powerful exploration of loss, time, love, and resilience that stands as the beloved garage band’s most ambitious, emotionally searing recording to date. The Moon Is In The Wrong Place shows the group ascending to new creative highs, while still weaving in the classic garage-rock and girl-group sounds that have long been a hallmark of their work. This time around, they venture to deeper, farther out musical locations than before and bring a new sophistication and intricacy to their arrangements, while Shaw’s powerful voice veers between sweetness and snarl — sometimes within the space of a single lyric.
The album opens with “The Vow,” a horn-laced number that Shaw wrote with the intention of surprising Haener on their wedding day. The track is a brief glimpse of possibility and hope for what might’ve been, one that is quickly torn to shreds. In the album's closing track, “Life Is Unfair,” Shaw finds something like acceptance. She spells it out: “Life is unfair, yet beautiful. I see it now.” Existence is both bitter and sweet, sunshine and rain, dark and light, life and death. It’s a little bit of everything. Sometimes the moon is in the wrong place. Knowing that has made her and The Clams stronger.
