Quilt (The Shams album)

The album was produced by Lenny Kaye, who was tipped to the band by Richard Hell.[6][7] Most of its songs were written by Amy McMahon Rigby.[8][9] All three band members were in their 30s when they recorded the album.[10]

Robert Quine and Will Rigby (Amy's husband at the time) played guitar and drums on the album, respectively.[11] "Time" is a cover of the Richard Hell song.[12]

Trouser Press wrote that "the beautifully constructed frustrated-love songs 'Stuck Here on the Ground' and 'Watching the Grass Grow' would be on oldies radio every eight hours if they’d only been recorded 20 years earlier."[12] The Austin American-Statesman noted that "instrumentation is kept to a minimum, harmonies are blended to sound human rather than studio slick and songs are intended to reflect everydayness rather than rock glamour."[5] Robert Christgau praised "Watching the Grass Grow".[14]

Entertainment Weekly commended the "crisp production and stick-to-the-rib-cage songs," likening the album to "a drowsy summer sing-along on a city fire escape."[15] The Washington Post called "Down at the Texaco" "a lively but hardly abrasive rocker that revives the spunky spirit of the Shangri-las' blue-collar love songs."[11] The Chicago Tribune concluded that "it's the good to great songs, artlessly terrific singing and sparse arrangements that make Quilt a keeper."[13] The Time Union deemed the album "positively delightful," labeling it "a cross between the Roches and the Shangri-Las."[16]

AllMusic wrote that "there's something decidedly postmodern about the Shams' approach to music, which combines girl group '60s pop with off-kilter jangliness and a sort of country twang."[17]