Labels: Glory Kid
Review by: MH
Vitriolic and dissonant post hardcore here from Seattle and featuring the vocals and guitar of Charlie Wagner from Cash Crop who put out a great album a few years back – can’t really recommend that one highly enough. Anyway, back to Slow Code. This new one sees them ploughing similar territory to their “Marketable Skills” EP at the end of 2015. The 90s influence is healthy with Drive Like Jehu one of the more obvious influences, and, like Cash Crop, there are traces of the heavier side of Unwound in there too. Opening track “Asset” is less than two minutes long but is a fiery and volatile assault – winding itself up and down, and up and down before it flies off at the end. The vocals are gritty and aggressive but with a hint of weariness which only comes to the fore in the worn-out and bleak closing track. It’s a pummelling and powerful record and the tracks twist and turn. “No Grandchildren” comes in halfway through the album and builds and builds, brings things down then, back up again before running into an instrumental second half. Relentless. I probably don’t listen to enough of this type of music these days but they have similar levels of fire in the belly to the likes of Fellow Project and The Nation Blue. Lyrically speaking there are similarities too with overriding bleakness and desolation being themes throughout. An absolutely storming LP.