SKORTS - INCOMPLETEMENT - [SELF-RELEASED]

At SKORTS’ first show, an amp exploded — call it a freak accident or a catalyzing prophecy — either way, from there was born a band that refused to arrive quietly. And with their debut Incompletement (October 31st), the group is packaging that power to deliver the album their fans have been waiting for since the group first started taking NYC stages by storm. 

With their debut, SKORTS has migrated the magic from the stage to the studio. Incompletement is pure passion pressed into permanence—polished, stadium-ready rock with a DIY edge, recorded live across three Brooklyn practice spaces with friend and producer Teddy O’Mara. These are the songs that have blasted for blocks off of rooftops, blown minds in bars and swept past bouncers to wow strangers on city sidewalks outside—at long last, officially on the record.

The album includes crowd favorites like “Eat Your Heart Out,” “R4DR4M” and, of course, “Bodies,” which will inevitably infiltrate every nook and cranny of yours. Incompletement is hair-raising rock ‘n’ roll: harmonies that resonate in heart and soul and melodies that flow through your veins, reverberate in your bones and hit the nerves you might not know exist, giving you goosebumps in the smallest, softest hollows of your fragile animal form. SKORTS makes music that reminds you you’re alive—and lets you know that you’re not alone.

“There are feelings that can’t be described in words,” Alli says. “I know a song’s good when it makes me cry.”

Incompletement is more than SKORTS’ greatest hits—the tracks their fans have eagerly been waiting for since first hearing them live. It also includes two never-performed songs that showcase a more tender side of the band.

In “Lace,” the fist packing all those sonic punches finally unfurls to coax you forward, inviting you to rest for a moment in its soft palm as it slowly lulls you to a place of peace. “Anyone,” the album’s finale, offers a similar dose of sweetness, the band loosening its grip to gently release you back into the world—more here, and more human, than you were before.

SKORTS is a product of creative chemistry and sweet serendipity. The foundation for the band was laid when lead singer and guitarist Alli Walls made what she calls her “big romantic gesture to music” and moved from Denver to New York City in 2021. Upon arrival, she hit it off with Char Smith (lead guitar) at a local guitar shop, and the duo laid down some demos. Char connected with Emma Welch outside a bar, and just like that, the band had their bassist. 

While coming from different corners of the country, and bringing different performance backgrounds, what these band members share is a deep commitment to their art and to each other. Rock ‘n’ roll is more than a genre; it’s also an ethos. And SKORTS is a group built on heart and on hustle—one that can’t help but lay it all out on the line.

Since that first show, SKORTS hasn’t stopped. For the last few years, the band has been everywhere, riding the wave they’ve swirled up themselves while forging their sound on stages across New York City—earning the title of Oh My Rockness’s Hardest Working Band in 2024; taking the crown at Our Wicked Lady’s Winter Madness battle-of-the-bands tournament that same year; and catching the eye and ear of radio icon Alisa Ali, who invited them to record a live session for 90.7 WFUV in early 2025. The band––completed by drummer Max Berdik– has also been cutting their teeth on tour, packing bigger and bigger rooms with returning fans and new recruits, all keen to stake their claim and earn the right to say I knew them when. 

It goes without saying that SKORTS is a band that thrives live. In a modern world, these are artists in search of a holy sound––something timeless, transcendent––and the show is a special kind of worship: equal parts spiritual experience and one hell of a party.

With the album’s title, the group references the evolving nature of this very humanity and the freedom that can be found when you give up on the idea of arrival and instead embrace a state of flux. 

“Incompletement is a word we made up,” SKORTS shares in their liner notes. “To us, it means allowing oneself to live and create in an ever-changing state of impermanence.”

It’s also, perhaps, an invitation. If this music is an exchange between gods and artists, artists and audience, now it’s your turn to have your way with it. To listen, connect, then maybe—just maybe—feel a little bit more complete.