It’s hard to tell if The Slow Show are more than the sum of their influences. Between naming themselves after a song by The National, smothering their songs in the lush arrangements of Tindersticks (the better ones) or the canned drama of Hurts (the lesser ones), and Rob Goodwin’s raspy baritone, this is a band with a very particular aesthetic.
Fortunately, it’s one that’s easy on the ears and can be frequently beautiful in its timelessness. The opening song, ‘Mountbatten’ is a lovely example of this. Cascading piano notes create an instant feeling of Yann Tiersen-level refinement, before the mournful strings and steady spoken-sung vocals hit all the right notes, raising expectations for the album.
The promise after this excellent song isn’t always lived up to. There are a few songs that seem to phone it in with their standard formula (‘Anybody Else Inside’, ‘Hey Lover’, ‘Slippin’), but even when that’s the case it’s a velvety gloop that’s pleasant enough, if not exactly pushing the envelope.
‘Breathe’, a song about inspired by the BLM movement, makes the questionable decision of having Rob Goodwin deliver lines like “I can’t breathe / breathe for me” in his stilted croak, almost mimicking the effect of choking. I don’t doubt the sincerity the band’s feeling (they’re almost aggressively sincere at all times), but it’s an odd choice.
Sometimes the collagist lyricism works well in its simplicity; the fleeting imagery of air and sea in Mountbatten or the refrain of the title in ‘Who Knows’ that neatly captures a feeling of contemporary helplessness. However, sometimes it feels a bit prosaic as on ‘Slippin’ (“this heart’s not big enough”) or first single ‘Blinking’.
‘Who Knows’ is also one of the only songs that brings the female vocals out clearly (almost with the soulful candour of Adele), rather than leaving them shrouded in the background. Elsewhere, there are other small adornments that nicely offset the chugging equilibrium like the acoustic guitar on ‘Woven Blue’ or noodling solo that closes ‘Hey Lover’. But the closing track, ‘Weightless’, is the only one that really feels experimental (by their standards) with a strong electronic undercurrent alongside the usual buffeting waves of brass. The spoken-word style is neatly cyclical with the opener, while the jazzy exitlude points towards a more interesting direction that isn’t really explored on this album.