Don’t miss the track from singer/songwriter Mishka Shubaly. I guarantee it will be the first time you’ve heard the lyric, "You left a bunch of dirty Kleenex underneath the mattress/like an unwanted batch of kittens." –USA Today
The gruff and rough-voiced Shubaly is a chronicler of mankind’s darkest impulses and failures, a guy with a ticket to hell and back. He lets it all out on "How to Make a Bad Situation Worse."—Time Out New York
I’m drunk. I’m drunk. I’m drunk. "How to Make a Bad Situation Worse" is all the title claims. One listen will send an AA meeting into complete disarray. www.antimusic.com
The alleged limitations of Shubaly’s singing voice lend veracity to his tales of boozing, depression, and disillusionment. Shubaly’s vision is grim, but like the best sad country songs and the most horrifying folk songs about broken souls and hard times, there’s a trace of self-effacing humor in his tunes that can make you laugh out loud, even as he flirts with suicide and misery. You don’t often hear songs with this much raw, emotional power and honesty, and it’s a jarring experience. –Crawdaddy
Mishka Shubaly’s "How to Make a Bad Situation Worse" is a dark gem packed with alcohol-guzzling rants, paralyzing depression, and sinister humor. The sardonic Brooklynite’s ominous, rumbling baritone frames his discouraging diatribes with a solemn grace, backed by cohorts who effortlessly shift between post-rock squall and hushed folk acoustics. A beaming ray of jet-black sunshine. —Village Voice
Everyone’s favorite liquorfied slacker indie prophet returns with his signature cadre of songs about love and loss masked behind a heavy layer of unflinching cynicism. On this third release, Shubaly’s gift for soul-baring honesty is on full display as he transforms familiar sounds into a ragged and passionate defiance worthy of Tom Waits. — Westword, CO
Best of 2007-- 7 Mishka Shubaly - How To Make A Bad Situation Worse (Hilarious and tragic. Best drinking album ever!) www.howwastheshow.blogspot.com
’Thank goodness Mishka Shubaly’s coarse, druggy poetry outweighs his love for dimestore comedy. Between bad jokes, the troubador and one-time Denver resident serenaded the meager audience at the Hi-Dive on Oct. 20 while jacking singer-songwriter cliches and revealing his ridiculous penchant for booze and devastating songs.
"Home" is a brilliant heartbreaker of an alley waltz. And it’s proof of this New York songwriter’s fierce sense of self and love of poetry, which has evolved gracefully since his days contemplating the "Washington Ballet."’
- Ricardo Baca, The Denver Post.
“…a gruff chronicler of fuckups and fuckovers. He smothers the bullshit out of fractured folk”--Village Voice
“…it’s time Las Vegas discovered drunken anti-hero Mishka Shubaly, who writes lines like ‘God, you’re so beautiful, it’s like your fucking deformed.’”--Las Vegas Weekly
“…brainy, smart-ass songs of disappointment and ‘heartbreak and liver failure’ chronicle the loser life in fresh, often hilarious fashion.”--Westword, CO
“Shubaly’s voice ain’t exactly pretty, but it’s just right for his music: thickly melodic sing-along songs that yank at your heartstrings and dark furious rockers.”--Time Out NY
“New York singer-songwriter Mishka Shubaly writes the most depressing songs EVER. and you’ll love him for it.”--InMusicWeTrust.com
“…it might seem insane that Shubaly decided to sell all his shit last year, buy a van and tour the country with wry tunes of disaster and heartbreak that are more No Depression than Yes New York. But Shubaly’s always maintained strength in the face of being a ridiculously overmatched underdog. He’s created gorgeous songs that make grown men cry, that remind you of teenage heartache and totally disarm you”--Portland Mercury
“Mishka Shubaly is this week’s unknown that you don’t want to miss. Dirty, down-and-out, hungover country rock songwriter Shubaly writes some of the best lyrical lines you’ve never heard, and delivers them in a gruff, only semi-musical voice while punishing a guitar for some imagined sin. Shubaly is currently homeless, having vowed to stay on the road for a year without a break, and should be just weathered enough by now to sing it like he means it. Great stuff.”--Tampa Weekly Planet
“Our pick of the week is ramblin’ man Mishka Shubaly, who last year packed it all up in a mini-van to live on the road. Shubaly grabs attention with his anti-hero, lo-fi attitude and his great (sometimes off-keyed) growl, as deep as an oil barrel full of polluted gunk. Combine that with Shubaly’s moody, minor note melodies, and his less than poetic lyrics and you’ve got raw art.”--Fayetteville Free Weekly
“Brooklyn-based Mishka Shubaly’s two albums reveal his biting sense of humor-- like all good ’depressing’ music, there’s a wink and a nod behind the bourbon and the smoke. He’s go tone of those ’acquired’ voices (Tom Waits, Smoke’s Benjamin) that’s really pretty great.”--Flagpole, GA
“…a tough guy too heartbroken to crack wise, a drunken lover looking to escape himself, excoriating friends and enemies, always intelligent, dangerous as a poorly chained Doberman. … raffish, sincere, literate, boozy and heartbroken, diabolically clever when not earnest and plain-faced, relentlessly committed to rock and roll. ”--TrisMcCall.net
