I could listen to these guys all day. I mean, I won't ("Herbie Goes Bananas" is on in fifteen- minutes). But I could.
Sheffield, England's Slow Club is a male/female guitar/drum duo (no, this isn't The White Stripes) that play a strange blend of folk-pop. I say strange because this music actually makes you feel pretty happy.
I'm used to troubadour folk-pop that makes me feel like the world is one big empty void and this here acoustic guitar is my only friend and even these six-strings will probably turn on me one cold dark night and bite me in the butt. Slow Club (Charles and Rebecca) is not that type of folk-pop.
Pretty harmonies, hand-claps and sing-a-long choruses that could come straight from the wooden pews of a dusty old church somewhere doesn't add up to a depressing listen. One song even has a refrain of, "Let's Fall Back in Love" with hooting and hollering in the background, for goodness sake.
Yet, miraculously, their melodic joy never comes across as cheesy or overly-sentimental. Slow Club is both heartfelt AND substantial. I dare you to try and write songs that meet both of those criteria.
The duo has most recently put out releases for the U.K. label Moshi-Moshi (Casiokids, Hot Chip, Matt & Kim), and those people at Moshi don't seem to miss much. They hit it right on the sweet-spot yet again with Slow Club. A good listen!
Slow Club play Volume, on Saturday, March 21st. |
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