Tuesday 16 December 2014

Albums of the Year 2014 #7 Slow Club - Complete Surrender


Slow Club seem to have been around forever now. Or rather at least as long as Breaking More Waves.  Charles Watson and Rebecca Taylor have got to the age where as a band they could almost considered to be musically middle aged, slipping into a pattern of comfortableness, repeating what has gone before, until eventually they get bored and stop. And yet they haven’t; and by doing so have created their best recorded work since they started. 

Moving from their early scruffy indie-country-folk sound to something richer, grander and more soulful whilst untapping Taylor’s seriously good pipes to an extent we’ve not heard before, Complete Surrender is surprisingly deep and often more than beautiful. It’s not just Taylor’s big voice that shines through though, Watson’s vocal may be more nasal and slight but it compliments his fellow band member perfectly in the harmonies they sing together.

Complete Surrender is a record that could have arguably been recorded in the sixties. It’s classic adult-pop, full of sadness, heartache, torch songs, the blues, piano ballads and dizzying horns. It’s like Dusty Springfield doing Amy Winehouse. It’s the album Duffy would have killed to record before it all went wrong. It’s more ambitious than we could have ever imagined. It’s a record of extraordinary emotions.

By far their most complete work to date, if you haven’t heard it yet, it’s time to give your ears up to it.

Slow Club - Everything Is New

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