SLOW PULP
SLOW PULP:
Alexander Leeds: Bass Guitar, Vocals
Emily Massey: Guitars, Vocals
Theodore Matthews: Drums and Percussion
Henry Stoehr: Guitars, Keyboards, Vocals
Willie Christianson: Slide Guitar and Harmonica on "Montana"
Molly Germer: Violin on "Falling Apart"
Michael Massey: Piano on "Whispers (In The Outfield)"
All music and lyrics by Slow Pulp
Engineered, Mixed and Produced by Henry Stoehr
Released October 9, 2020
That is exactly how I felt in the opening moments of the excellent new album from Slow Pulp.
"Moveys," the debut full length release from the Madison, WI originated and now Chicago, IL based band Slow Pulp is breathtaking. A perceptively wise and deeply felt triumph, the shimmering, glistening document of a young band artistically maturing and fearlessly extending themselves with meticulous warmth, grace, daring openness and brave fragility. In short, the album is the sound of growing up increasingly anxious and isolated and captured in all of its enlightenment, melancholy, considerable pain and even some dashes of well placed self-deprecating humor to lessen the emotional blows that come with act of aging into and engaging with a larger, colder, and more turbulently precarious world...especially one that currently is engulfed with a terrifying pandemic. Slow Pulp have emerged with a delicate document, perfectly tailored for this specific moment in time, that is as intensely personal as it is universal in its scope and empathy.
And now, there are those aforementioned opening moments...
The journey of "Moveys" begins with "New Horse," and all it took was a mere 26 seconds for me to fall hard. A bed of acoustic guitars, sounding like the act of leaves descending from trees in autumn on a cold, grey morning, exquisitely set the scene. Lead singer/guitarist Emily Massey's instantly warm, inviting vocals, on which she richly harmonizes with herself, pulls us inwards. "Baby don't tell me," she begins. Then, at that moment, on that first listen, I stopped the song abruptly.
It was a strange, unexplainable feeling I had in those 26 seconds, yet I knew those emotions as I sighed and swelled at what I had just heard. Certainly, it was utter pleasure at hearing the guitar strings being plucked with such clarity that it felt as if the band were directly beside me, along with Massey's voice surrounding me closely like a treasured cover against the cold. Everything felt so right, so true, so real and so direct, that there felt to be no barrier between myself and the music. It was right here, in the room with me, living and feeling alongside me. I obviously had no idea of what was to follow but I was ready to hear it again, wondering if my reaction perhaps had been a fluke.
It wasn't.
Starting "New Horse" over again and then proceeding, filled me. Again, the sonic display perfectly weaved its autumnal spell through subtle textural instrumentations of which I could not discern but perfectly augmented the inner tension contained in Massey's vocals, especially when she offered the seemingly naked admission, "If I could treat myself better/I know I'm still getting better/I might come back/I'll hope for that."
In just a tiny fraction over two minutes, Slow Pulp had captured something that I truly could not quite place but very shortly revealed itself to me. They had encapsulated the moment in which I was living, and therefore, what I am feeling all of us are living in during this time of prolonged uncertainty and anxiety and for so much of the time when the activity of the world all but stopped yet the world continued to turn. "New Horse," to me, captured the moment that now existed within every moment, when internal thoughts, worries, concerns, fears, doubts and truths became amplified due to the lack of distractions while being increasingly isolated. The band clearly touch a nerve, or several...and they were just getting started.
"I know now/I'm not all that you wanted," Massey realizes at the outset of "Trade It." With gently strummed electric guitars replacing the acoustic textures, Massey's vocals gradually begin to build upon themselves, practically curling around the lyrics and melody, mining for strength and reclamation in the face of what feels to be rejection. "For it's honest/I'm all I had," she sings, clearly holding onto whatever sense of self and well being she can gather. And yet, while she is "almost out" and admits that "I'll fall back down," the internal wherewithal remains, via Bassist Alexander Leeds and Drummer Theodore Matthews' rising rhythm section augmented by Massey's equally rhythmic coos that almost sound like the act of exhales. "I'm coming to take it back," she declares, maybe only to herself.
The full band arrives ever stronger upon "Idaho," a song of striking juxtaposition as we are being given a song about nagging negativity threatening to fully overtake into downfall or defeat.
"I'll keep you out
My body knows me now
I'll try to be without
Sleep on your shoulder for now
I'll keep on holding out for the downside
Before I knew why
I don't think I can win your side on time
I'm losing all the while..."
The state of depression, especially when the lives of loved ones are closely involved, is precarious. Filled with self-awareness combined with a matter-of-fact sense of inevitability and even a misguided sense of protection through isolation rather than connection felt evident as I listened. Massey's vocals surround knowingly as her bandmates keep marching forwards before fading into the ether courtesy of high pitched ambient wisps of sound.
Reportedly written either for or about her Mother, "Track," finds Massey reconnecting into her love, whether within a moment when both Mother and daughter are together or possibly, while apart, and the possibility of reunion is uncertain. Matthews' drums feel like the urgent heartbeat, while what I am assuming are Guitarist Henry Stoehr's six string atmospherics (am I hearing an E-Bow?) feel like threads of memoires contained inside unbreakable heartstrings.
"I love the crossing lines on your face," Massey sings at one point. "I'll try to salt the fruit like you did," she sings in another moment of memory. Yet over and again, she promises, "I will recall your name/I see you in my face/Love you always/Love you always/Love you always."
It is as if the two will never see each other again.
Falling into the same old patterns and mistakes sit at the heart of the terrific dark power pop of "At It Again," as the intertwining guitars, aggressive beat and pitch perfect sing-a-long chorus demands repeated listenings despite the singer's confessions of her own repetitive failings.
With a snippet of studio chatter, "Moveys" enters its second half with the surprise of hearingAlexander Leeds taking what I believe is his debut lead vocal on "Channel 2," a song of procrastination, ennui and disconnection when communication is desired but is possibly not accessible.
"Concentration takes up all of my time
I'll come back tomorrow
Your hesitation tells me what was on your mind
It's never convenient...
...Expectations keep me in the back of the line
I'll come back tomorrow
The situation tells me what was on your mind
It's never convenient..."
With the sparkling lift from Leeds' engaging vocals and especially, Henry Stoehr's brief yet flashy guitar solos, Slow Pulp utilizes this otherwise energetic yet brooding selection to prepare us for the greater emotional downshift to arrive. "Channel 2," made me wonder if this track was simultaneously presenting a portrait that was an either an answer or counterpoint to the songs on which Emily Massey handled the lead vocals. Was Leeds' voice a response to Massey's or was it an additional voice within Massey's, thus signifying all of the myriad of thoughts and inner voices that either support or plague us all, even at the best of times. Yet, now, here we are in an ongoing season of pandemic and isolation, in which time has become even more elastic, making the process of self-regulation, arriving at decisions and realizing those decisions increasingly difficult and sometimes, maybe even often futile.
The piano instrumental "Whispers (In The Outfield)" is stunning. It paints such a precise aural picture of the autumnal isolation we have been experiencing throughout the album. It is a song of windswept, lonely grey days, with all thoughts and memories as your only company. Sometimes you do not need words and this selection is elegantly crestfallen.
The arrival of "Falling Apart" and "Montana" provides the album with a profound existential ache, presented with such directness and exposed nerve endings, that the two songs richly encapsulated everything that preceded it while also arriving a some sense of a congealed, cumulative statement. In fact, the songs reminded me of the feelings I experienced when I first heard the song "Drum In," the shattering climax of "Collector" (released March 6, 2020), the debut album from Disq, friends and contemporaries of Slow Pulp.
In "Falling Apart," Emily Massey returns, accompanied by a languid tempo that is as filled with sorrow as it is filled with something rather intoxicating. The scene finds Massey "Looking at the TV/Thinking that you're dreaming" while "Feeling like a deadbeat," as se contemplates moving forwards but her demons sadly contain louder voices.
"Why don't you go back
To falling apart
You were so good at that
You're one in a million now"
Taunted and tormented by her own thoughts, "Falling Apart" is a song of mounting depression, and existing in that dangerous state of just sticking with the devil you know as opposed to taking a possibly more frightening leap into something potentially better, simply because it is still the unknown and nothing is promised. This song sounds like the threat of slipping into a warm coma.
"Montana" feels to represent a certain moment of truth, where anxiety has taken superior hold, with self-inflicted messages of self-loathing and laceration, all designed to stop oneself from even trying to move forwards at all.
"I'm a bad mess
I'm a loner with no plans...
...I'm a contest
I'm a loser with no chance..."
And yet, that semblance of inner strength remains to keep asking for help, to request for someone to "Hold my hand...again," and for her own spirit to be strong just enough to "Come on get out of my head," as Massey repeats the word "Head" in a similar fashion to moments within "Trade It." It is a painful song, filled with palpable sadness with sighing slide guitar and sobbing harmonica and Massey's vocals sounding like she is breathing life back into herself. Absolutely gorgeous.
"Moveys" concludes with the title track, an instrumental which feels like an oddball outlier but to me, is a perfect conclusion to an album so interior. With its hip-hop beat and more abrasive sounds and vocal textures of real world commands to "Move it!!, "Scram !!" and "Get back!!," we have re-entered the world outside in all of its rudeness, harshness, energy, grit and spit and right along with our album's protagonist, as she (and therefore, we) faced down her demons to place one foot in front of the other all over again.
Slow Pulp's "Moveys" is a commanding work of grand delicacy and bittersweet fragility as it practically glistens and shimmers through your speakers while making direct emotional contact. It extends and contrasts with their previous release, the beautiful 4 song, 11 minute EP "Big Day" (released May 15, 2019) as it is the band's most expansive work to date. While the sound and aesthetics are not too far removed from their earlier singles and EPs, Slow Pulp have considerably widened their musical palate to contain more acoustic textures, an even greater sense of nuance and atmospheric texture while presenting a conceptual canvas to create a work that can house two instrumentals, a musical adventurousness that drifts to alt-country via its aching ballads and yet they sit comfortably alongside crunchy indie power pop.
And...it is only a mere 26 minutes!! While this is the longest duration of any Slow Pulp release thus far, it does fall shorter than the more traditional 35-40 minute album length. Even so, and in that miraculous Slow Pulp fashion, it is a complete statement. It just remains absolutely remarkable to me as to how the band has tis uncanny ability to discern and distill however many potential elements into exactly and precisely what the song needs, and nothing more. Their skill in this regard is meticulous and they grow stronger with each release, making "Moveys" a work where every one of their songs are honed and sharpened to their finest points.
I have no idea as to what their collective and individual musical influences may happen to be or not, but to my ears, Slow Pulp's "Moveys" is yet another indie rock release that owes a certain debt to what was created on Fleetwood Mac's far ahead of the curve double album "Tusk" (released October 12, 1979), as the emotional nakedness combined with the musical inventiveness re-invented what the pop music landscape could actually be, if it were just that brave enough.
Slow Pulp is undeniably that brave, so fearless in their art that they weathered a certain amount of storms to make "Moveys" happen as it was an album that experienced a difficult gestation. It is a work where the band recorded material that ended up being unused and they were brave enough to begin all over again. It is a work where Emily Massey herself was fraught with serious health issues, and still, she continued to write, to sing, to create. It is an album where Massey's parents in Madison, WI were involved in an equally serious car accident, which involved their hospitalization and recovery, as Massey's home base is now in Chicago. And then, COVID-19 arrived, forcing the shutdown and social distancing, meaning the album was completed while in quarantine.
It woud be completely forgivable if the band decided to call it a day, even as their star was ascending due to the obstacles and whatever doubts and fears they harbored individually. How thankful I am that they all persevered and it is again yet another testament to the healing power of music.
As I have so often stated concerned Slow Pulp and their contemporaries, I have always been so struck with how all egos are dismissed from the musicians as they all work in favor of the song itself. I know firsthand what Henry Stoehr can do as a guitarist as I have experienced him within live performance settings in which he takes his guitar to the stars. Yet, for these songs, Stoehr remains a superbly tasteful player, never over or under playing but always being intuitive to the song's structures, composition and textures.
Perhaps it is his growing skills as a Producer that assists him in being a great team player and studio artist who paints with sound. I believe this is the first Slow Pulp release to contain cameo appearances from outside musicians, confirming that the band is not so precious with their own material that they are adverse to other voices being present to help them realize their collective voice as best as possible.
Case in point is the instrumental "Whispers (In The Outfield)," which Stoehr composed and yet does not play himself, even though he is a fine keyboardist. Somehow knowing that his touch was not quite right, he reached outwards to none other than veteran Madison based pianist Michael Massey--Emily Massey's Father--to perform the song while convalescing from his car accident injuries. This decision was a masterstroke as it not only spoke to the aforementioned healing power of music but to that ephemeral quality that extends from performer to instrument and whatever emotions housed inside of Michael Massey that were so empathetically delivered to the song, allowing it to become what Stoehr envisioned. It is unquestionably an album highlight that further informs what Slow Pulp is capable of.
As the band's frontwoman, Emily Massey remains powerfully compelling and bewitching. She has truly been blessed with an uncanny ability to shapeshift her persona with such a seemingly effortless ease, from her power pop diva days as the lead singer of the now defunct Modern Mod. As she has solidified her space within Slow Pulp, and especially upon "Moveys," she has shape shifted again into something more akin to Aimee Mann and John Lennon rather than David Bowie and Shirley Manson. "Moveys" finds Massey in confessional mode. No frills or fantasy. Just open hearted and direct and the strength is presenting such fragility so fearlessly via her finest vocals to date showcases another layer of her power.
For Alexander Leeds and Theodore Matthews, they continue to exist as a succulent, supple rhythm section who operate, again, with a tastefulness and subtlety that might make you miss exactly how diligent they are for they are not playing to call attention to themselves. Theodore Matthews especially impressed me greatly as he has always possessed a wonderful feel to his playing. He practically glides when he hits that ride cymbal. With "Moveys," Matthews, for me, has ascended further into that rarefied Mick Fleetwood/Ringo Starr territory where he, like is bandmates, delivers only and exactly what the song needs while simultaneously playing in sync with Leeds while also playing in support of Massey's vocals.
Slow Pulp's "Moveys" is a shining debut/continuation for a band that in unafraid to evolve. It is quite possible that whatever arrives next from the band may sound even different while also showcasing their progression. Yet, for now, the foursome have unveiled a work that speaks to this intensely fragile moment in our collective existence as the so-called "new normal" is anything but as the unknown an d unpredictability has become the only predictable thing in our lives, and that includes our states of being psychologically, emotionally, and spiritually as we are in desperate need of contact at a moment when we should be apart.
We are all in need of connection and the kind of lengthy embrace where you hold each other so tightly that you can feel each other's hearts beating. It is a gift that Slow Pulp's "Moveys" is now in the world, for when we reach to embrace it, it will reach back.
And I believe we will be able to feel each other's beating hearts.
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