For all the heartbreak ballads, Christian Gates has a heavier gear, and SHREDS is where he shifts into it. A 2024 single, it leans into the distorted, guitar-driven, dark alt-pop side of his sound.
The loud end of the spectrum
Gates refuses to pick a genre, and SHREDS is the proof at the harder pole. Where NUMB is fragile and stripped to almost nothing, this is the pop-punk-adjacent energy Apple Music has noted in his catalog, closer to a mosh pit than a bedroom. The title is a pun and a promise: shredded guitars, shredded feelings.
Range, on purpose
Songs like this are why his live shows can swing from intimate to electric in a single set. An artist who only makes ballads is a fragile live act; one who can also bring the volume has a dynamic range to work with. The same voice that aches on a ballad can cut through distortion, and Gates likes keeping both options on the table.
The soft-voiced artist with a hard edge.
The through-line
SHREDS is a reminder that the confessional intimacy is a choice, not a limitation. Gates could make a whole career of quiet, but he keeps reaching for the loud version too, part of the same restless, uncontainable instinct that took him from bedroom covers to a Don Diablo future-house record. More in the wiki.