Friday, December 23, 2011

STN Albums Of The Year no.8: Slow Club - Paradise

Rebecca and Charles have done a lot of growing up since Yeah, So. Their musical palette is deeper and richer, the vocals are more confident and mature (Taylor's especially) and the emotional range is less hyper, more grounded and fragile. Yet despite such development their essential Slow Club-ness, the playing off each other with tremeloed rock'n'roll guitar sound and rattling tom-toms and that slight raggedness round the edges, remains intact when they get a jog on. It's the ballads which provide the extra flavouring - they did this before on occasion (Sorry About The Doom) but they now seem to have a greater emotional connection, spare and affecting in their hopeless resignation. Beautifully constructed, even when it seems like they're tagging onto each other for fun and companionship, it's evidence of both growing into themselves and giving themselves room to grow.

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