The Slow Blade - s/t - Download (2012)

Labels: self released
Review by: MH

These guys are from Sheffield and have named themselves after Sheffield United’s most cumbersome and lumbering centre half, Chris Morgan. You could also argue it to be a Dune-related name. Most of the band used to be in Flatlands who I am not familiar with so I won’t be making any comparisons to them but there are certainly a few people who read this website who are more familiar with them. There are five tracks of mid-paced post hardcore here with a 90s flavour – it’s pretty good. They go for some fairly odd song titles “” the best of which is “œYou’re Ruining The Christmas Lectures”. The vocals veer from spoken to more harsh and desperate singing and yelling, and are certainly one of the strong points of this band. The build-ups and riffs are varied and interesting too. “œTurkish Quad Biking” is a slower, brooding track that adds some variation. The talky vocals on this track sound similar to the bloke from Interpol. I think it is someone other than the singer who is doing the talky vocals. These reoccur in the final track which is a whopping 7 minutes and 17 seconds long. It’s really good though “” after a louder start, it trundles along with mainly spoken vocals backed by some harsher yelling before a more frantic finale which leads into an acoustic fade-out with a sampled voiceover. Quite an impressive debut. These songs are apparently from when the band first formed after the end of Flatlands. I’m interested to hear what they do next.