A new Pines Of Rome album appearing in 2023 was not something I anticipated. If I’m being truthful, it wasn’t something I’d reckon on particularly hankering for, either, if the idea had somehow come up in conversation. I’d heard an album on Corleone Records and liked it well enough, but as with many other releases it had rather faded from my mind.
Now, here they are, 20 years on and with a new album and, you know what? It’s an absolute revelation.
Digging back into that Corleone release, The Everlasting Arms, it’s a decent slice of countrified slowcore: stuff that slipped nicely alongside the likes of Winfred E. Eye and early Lucero. Former emos trading in their funny little Ian MacKaye beanies for cowboy hats, and all that.
This, though, is fuller and more heartbreaking, speaking to years unsatisfactorily lived and expectations that, left untended, have curled at the edges before turning to dust. There’s a creak and groan to the music, like old joints slow to respond. A thoughtfulness, and an acceptance that the hand one’s been dealt is all there is to play, shitty as it is. Unpleasant as this likely makes me sound, this is exactly what I want from my slowcore, and it’s this that so often seems to be missing. Because any band can play slow, and while they might get the sad, they generally don’t have enough miles on the clock to have really earned the weariness, let alone the ability to come to terms with it and make that a part of their sound. This is the rare stuff: a coped-with, ingrained sorrow that is so familiar to the players it can be handled with a wry sort of resignation.
The music here is varied, but hangs together perfectly. Slow-motion country and busted up indie rock twine around each other like weeds seeking space and sunlight in dry, powdery soil. Occasionally, there is a yaw and a crash, as if a piece of icecap is shearing off and plunging down into the sea. Songs about missed opportunities, and bands that really thought they could’ve been something. There’s Rex and there’s Codeine, and in the comparatively upbeat ‘Redacted’ a strong, bummed out sense of Silkworm that struggles its best to clamber over the Sonic Youth and Dinosaur Jr. vibes.
It’s a really, really lovely thing – an ache of an album that somehow comforts despite the discomfiting memories it might dredge up. I have listened to it a hell of a lot, lately.