Labels: Deep Elm
Review by: Damien Mills
So i’m back on Deep Elm duty, I guess that means Gareth has returned to Canada, I love that they still send this stuff though…
To be honest I thought Slowride had at the very least drifted into obscurity, or otherwise just broke up. They are one of the last bands of what I’d consider my ‘era’ of Deep Elm that are still on the label after most others that didn’t split (Brandston, Appleseed Cast, PMFS, Pop Unknown etc…) got the push in favour of more commercial stuff, might it be because this sounds exactly like big bucks radio rockers Queens Of The Stone Age? I honestly can’t remember if they’ve always sounded quite like this, I’d be surprised if they did though. So yeah, this is all about fuzzy low riffing and ultra laconic vocals, but still really poppy and melodic. There is also the tiniest hint of old Dinosaur Jr in there, it also well reminds me of an old Brit-rock act who’s name I can’t remember, but they sang in Yank accents and had a song called ‘misunderstood’ with a chorus that just went “fuck ’em! fuck ’em! fuck ’em!”. That’s really gonna haunt me now, any ideas people?
So, do I like it or not? I’m not sure, it didn’t really grab me by the throat but I can imagine it growing on me given half the chance, but then I suppose I grew up on that Alterna-Rock/Brit – rock junk, you can take the boy out of his flannel shirt…