REVIEW | Ecce Shnak’s “Katy’s Wart” A Cinematic Masterclass in Art-Rock Anarchy
New York City-based Ecce Shnak makes art rock that pulls from punk bite, pop hooks, and left field structure, never sitting still for long. After a 2025 stretch that included the Shadows Grow Fangs EP and the live “Backroom Sessions” release, “Katy’s Wart” returns now as a deliberate bridge between that recent run and their forthcoming full length album Dandy Variances.
Ecce Shnak’s “Katy’s Wart” is the most phantasmagoric and captivating project I have come across in 2026 so far, warranting a visit to the Joke Ono album it was originally released on. The song itself is heavy and cryptic, with an intensity that pulls the listener into a trance. The short film sets up seemingly awkward innocence, introduces intrusion, then snaps into otherworldly animation, and the track only arrives in that rupture, which gives its mood real impact. The track’s sudden entrance and hard cutoff are the hinge the whole piece turns on.
The track is heavy in a very specific way. The guitars hit in tight, stop-start chunks that feel like impact more than melody, and the rhythm keeps hammering the same space until it turns claustrophobic. Then the vocal arrives in a gentler register, eerie and controlled, like it is speaking in polite language while the band is doing violence underneath it. Lyrically it reads like a set of rules spoken out loud, formal and controlling, and the calm vocal approach turns that formality into tension. The track stays emotionally controlled on top while the instrumentation pushes hard below, which gives the words extra bite. It comes off forceful and focused, with a strange elegance in how it holds its composure.
Instead of treating the music as a constant backdrop, the film treats it like a cue, and everything beforehand is set up. The strongest choice the film makes is how ordinary it looks at first, because it frames the rupture as a defense mechanism, something they release on purpose once the situation crosses a line. The moment Katy’s wart is used in self-defense, the entire film’s energy shifts drastically. Not only in the sense of visual execution and style, but in the plot itself. It starts to feel like a comic, where two normal high school girls have a special tool they can use to defend against predators, similar to Spider-Man or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. The real kick is that it is otherworldly, like Love, Death + Robots, allowing for grotesque imagery with beautiful, unorthodox imagination.
Ecce Shnak (pronounced Eh-kay sh-knock) is made up of David Roush (composer, bassist and one of two singers), Bella Komodromos (vocals), Chris Krasnow (guitar), Gannon Ferrell (guitar), and Henry Buchanan-Vaughn (drums). Together, they are a force to be reckoned with (or joined).
In this work, Ecce Shnak mastered a strong contrast between reality, which is often alarming and unsafe, and genuinely ungodly terror that is, in a strange way, comforting. The work of the production-direction team of Hollye Bynum and Sam Owens, and David Roush, the animation was performed by Titmouse Productions.
“Katy’s Wart” is available on Bandcamp. Check out their previous EP Shadows Grow Fangs below!
Written by Nika Kretov.
