Slow Club - Paradise

Saw a Twitter exchange some time back in June, it went word-for-word like this:

@RLUnsworth: Hello

I don’t wanna stereotype, but I need to know… Do you like Juno, and other Michael Cera films? Slow Club = <3

@SlowClubRebecca: no

- awkward silence, and then, a minute later -

@SlowClubRebecca: sorry, don’t mean to be blunt, just despise all that lo fi twee shit!

The stark ‘no’ was brilliant. The ‘no’ should have been enough. The follow-up is the key though; says so much about the Slow Club mindset, about their inspirations and, more importantly, their aspirations.

The briefest of internet trawls with ’Slow Club’ typed into the search box spews out damning evidence: ‘twee ’60s twang’, ‘twee C86 anorak jangle pop’ and even ‘impossibly twee’. Amongst the chaos and clatter in the early records you can kind of see why, but mostly you should be trying to see why not. Could you hear Ellen Page and Michael Cera bouncing ‘It Doesn’t Have To Be Beautiful’ coyly off each other? Well, yeah, maybe. The reason, though, isn’t that the song is all sweet-natured cuteness but because it‘s pure and simple great pop. Anyone / everyone could sing it, it could be a boy / girl karaoke standard, but let’s adjust the ambition levels here; don’t imagine Kimya Dawson and some indie schmoe mangling it, imagine Beyoncé and Kanye absolutely fucking killing it. Slow Club were never wilfully shambolic and never dealt in faux-naivety. Slow Club are the anti-anti-folk. Slow Club, just to be clear, ain’t twee.

‘Paradise’ is identifiably Slow Club, still trades noisy exhilaration and serene beauty, but it throb throb throbs with pop ambition. It starts with ‘Two Cousins’ setting an immaculate tone. The production is so clean, so precise and shimmers with tension, a tension stretched so taut it could twang and snap any second. It never does though; there’s no waste, no blurred edges, no specks of dust. It’s steely, controlled and dauntingly muscular. When those muscles flex and the chorus kicks in it’s a genuine ’wow, where did that come from?’ moment. More than that though the cards are laid straight onto the table, face up so we can all see them, ‘All of our feelings there in the porch, so no-one could avoid.’ Nothing’s going to be hidden here, nothing held back.

The record is always honest, sometimes painfully, often brutally; no punches are pulled, no feelings are spared. Slow Club songs are still songs about love, loss and longing, but the loss feels harder, the love harder to get to and the longing occasionally hopeless. They sound desolate; not bitter, not angry, just truly sad, and, occasionally, a little bit broken. ‘Paradise’ obsesses on transience and mortality, ebbs with a disconsolate resignation to the finite nature of, well, everything. It’s also tries to kick against it, encourages communication, inner strength and pleads for a bit of backbone. Pluck might not fight off inevitable decline, but it’s sure got to be worth a go, and as ‘Gold Mountain’ makes clear, it‘s down to you and only you to make a stand: ‘Hold on for God’s sake, But not that tight to your doubt, Cos they have found out that when, Life is pouring out, You are the only one that counts.’

It’s that backbone that ensures the record never descends into overly emo moroseness. It’s always waving, never quite drowning. When you hear “I got enough to keep me going, keep me from the brink” in ‘Beginners’ you have no doubt that it’s true. Even better during ‘Where I’m Waking’ there’s a gloriously brash self-confidence at play. ‘I can see you looking at me, You got the brains I got the body, Whisper loud then speak it softly, What it is you’re wanting from me.’ Hell, Rihanna couldn’t make those lines sound hotter, and not for one moment do we doubt who’s really got the brains either.

The lyrical smarts in album highlight ‘Hackney Marsh’ are so Slow Club; witty observations speaking huge truths; ‘Currency can ruin friendships, A mattress will do it too’ is just wonderful, but bettered almost immediately by the foreboding warning of ‘…like a cupboard of bills I am waiting.’ As similes for delaying sickeningly inevitable reality go that’s really about as good as it gets.

‘Paradise’ is more than just a step forward for Slow Club; this is already potential fulfilled, a band utterly in control and realising ambitions. With no compromise to heart or soul they’ve created a huge, gleaming pop classic beyond the scope and imagination of so many of the contemporaries. Where they go from here should be pretty exceptional. Don’t file under twee.