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“Who actually are Two Shell?” It’s possibly the most frequently asked question amongst dance music fans since the mysterious group burst onto the scene with 2022 garage-pop hit ‘Home’. The group have never revealed their real identities, instead giving a handful of anonymous interviews – even being rumoured to hire actors to masquerade as Two Shell and play pre-recorded DJ sets.
Their elusive anonymity arguably adds to their mass appeal. They represent the everyman in the dance music world; someone who can not only enjoy club tracks, but also make it big by producing them. On their debut album, ‘Two Shell’, one thing is abundantly clear: a typical Two Shell track is immersive, experimental and playful, rejecting the rigid categorisation of dance genres.
Two Shell’s production shines. ‘hurt somebody’ is an almost 6-minute long song featuring striking synths and syncopated drum patterns, wistfully placed behind a looped vocal singing “can I really hurt somebody?” – enough to send a clubber into hypnosis on the dancefloor. Meanwhile, ‘inside’ captures emotional duality with its uplifting melodies juxtaposed against a more introspective undertone, inviting listeners into a reflective space.
The album also brings heat and pace by fusing popular dancefloor genres. ‘Be somebody’ brings elements of hyperpop, garage and broken beat together using a fragmented, pitched-up vocal sample against a rhythmic drum pattern. Meanwhile, ‘Mirror’ is a speedy track which takes the pace of electro and melds it with glitchy techno-like sounds and off-kilter beats, to maintain a body-moving flow.
Two Shell have a knack for using bold, attention-grabbing samples – the kind that interests not only eagle-eyed WhoSampled heads but also major-label lawyers with prestigious clients. ‘round’, a chopped-up and warped track using vocals from the Sugababes’ 2002 hit ‘Round Round’, was teased to fans during their DJ sets and always reportedly got roaring reactions. Excitingly, the Sugababes’ original (and current) lineup of Mutya, Keisha, and Siobhan re-recorded their vocals especially for Two Shell, placing a lot of faith in Two Shell and their sampling abilities.
There is slight room for improvement; these songs could be better stylistically blended and harmoniously married to make a more cohesive body. The jump from the frivolous, bouncy end notes of ‘rock solid’ is overly juxtaposed by the airy synth work at the start of ‘hurt somebody’, giving the flow of this album a slightly jarring feel.
Yet credit must be given for the album’s suitability to its intended home: played out through a sound system to sweaty, hedonistic crowds. At a time when dance music is becoming faster, sillier, and all-round headier, the overall sonic identity of ‘Two Shell’ is a true marker of the times. Packed with USB-ready tracks that are energetic and experimental, ‘Two Shell’ positions the enigmatic group as flag-bearers of a daring new era.
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The leather jackets and skinny jeans worn by Noah Dillon and Chandler Ransom Lucy have become something of a signature, and the pair have hovered around the edges of the pop worlds in New York and Los Angeles for quite some time. First highlighted by NME during the Dimes Square resurgence in 2023, The Hellp have gradually stepped away from their earlier indie-sleaze imitation and leaned into something far more thoughtful. Their wild, neon-tinged party vibe has been traded for a more cinematic electronic approach that still holds onto a confident, self-aware attitude.
Dillon and Lucy started releasing music as The Hellp in 2016, with early mixtapes rooted in the chaotic nights and carefree behaviour once associated with NYC’s indie-sleaze staples like LCD Soundsystem and Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Over time, though, they’ve earned a steadily growing respect from critics. That rise has come through both their underground gigs, which have included a show at London’s Corsica Studios with Fakemink as support, and through Dillon’s expanding visual work that recently reached Rosalía’s ‘LUX’ album and a pair of music videos for 2hollis.
As ‘Riviera’ approached release, the duo shared: “We knew our next project would need to be a bit more mature… we refuse to become stagnant. ‘Riviera’ is more solemn, restrained and impassioned than anything we’ve done before.” The finished album feels like Dillon and Lucy carefully balancing identity and openness, theatricality and direct emotion.
The lead release, ‘Country Road’, carries a late-night heaviness, the kind of confession you would quietly tell a friend in a club’s smoking area. Its lonely tone is surrounded by glitching electronics and a rising bridge that points to the exhaustion that follows endless nights out. Tracks like ‘New Wave America’ and ‘Cortt’ deepen what the duo mention in their liner notes as a “desperate story of the disparate Americana.” Both pieces broaden the album’s emotional landscape and offer clear-eyed commentary on reluctantly stepping into adulthood.
When ‘Riviera’ shifts into ‘Doppler’, the tone brightens for a moment as hopeful synths lift Dillon’s words about yearning and heartbreak into an emotional peak. And in the final moments of the record, The Hellp land on something instantly familiar to anyone who has drifted away from the club scene. The Kavinsky-like opening of ‘Here I Am’ nods to their early inspirations, while the closing track ‘Live Forever’ arrives with a slow, grounded maturity, built around Dillon repeating the line: “I don’t want to live forever.”
‘Riviera’ holds far less disorder than The Hellp’s earlier releases. This turn inward marks an important risk for a duo once fuelled by the momentum of a downtown New York comeback. By easing off the frenzy, The Hellp have stepped out of the party’s lingering haze and returned with a style that feels more refined and more aware of itself than anything they have created before.
