Slow Burning Car – Defection (2017) December 28, 2017 Written by David Shouse, http;\/\/hiphipdream.blogspot.com<\/p>\n
Slow Burning Car\u2019s fourth studio release, Defection, is an invigorating musical ride from start to finish. They don\u2019t simply bludgeon listeners into submission with a power chord guitar rock attack \u2013 there\u2019s ample intelligence powering the band\u2019s ten songs and they never confine themselves to a single musical approach. Instead, Defection crackles with the same imaginative energy enlivening the band\u2019s previous three releases and, not unexpectedly, finds that the band continues to refine their approach thus focusing their muscle and concentration. Even the album\u2019s comparatively muted tunes surge with raw creativity and carry listeners away from the first. Their musicianship is equally impossible to deny \u2013 they are a band whose performances and songwriting alike command the audience\u2019s attention from the outset and bring us along on a memorable journey. Slow Burning Car\u2019s Defection is an effective and important release in this band\u2019s career. It begins in a powerful, muscular fashion with the track \u201cAlpha Duplicor\u201d. It\u2019s well worth remarking on the band\u2019s talent for whipping up heavy guitars while their songs, no matter the tempo, continue to exert an across the board light touch. That point is driven further home by the album\u2019s second song \u201cSoul Crimes\u201d. Slow Burning Car turns up the pace here in a big way and the guitar attack is charging even harder than before, but there\u2019s never any sense of too much going on here and the production balances things out in an artful, yet physical, way. \u201cThe Orb\u201d comes off as a live take and the way Adam Idell\u2019s drumming brings us into the song reinforces that. Even if this isn\u2019t really a hot take captured for posterity, the band deserves kudos for successfully making it feel like that. The grinding, stop-start quality of the song\u2019s arrangement crossed with vocalist Troy Spiropoulos\u2019 nearly hissed delivery is very notable. \u201cDevil in the Room\u201d is the first of the album\u2019s definite bows to Slow Burning Car\u2019s punk rock influences and they are every bit as artful bringing that sound into the album\u2019s mix as they are with their other musical inclinations. \u201cYou Can\u2019t Stay Here\u201d is another track in that vein and has a much clearer lineage to the form while still twisting the track with the band\u2019s own idiosyncratic songwriting touch. \u201cBedtime\u201d is the more memorable of the band\u2019s two acoustic focused tracks while the second to last song, \u201cPolar Warden\u201d, is a surprising instrumental full of atmospherics and instrumentation that doesn\u2019t appear in the earlier tracks. The album concludes with \u201cClouds\u201d, another unexpected stylistic turn that reinforces the band\u2019s willingness to throw audiences\u2019 expectations out the window. They acquit themselves well with a variety of styles and it is to their credit as both songwriters and musicians that they never fail to sound credible. Slow Burning Car\u2019s Defection is a well thought out, musically entertaining release full of intelligent, accessible songwriting. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Slow Burning Car – Defection (2017) December 28, 2017 Written by David Shouse, http;\/\/hiphipdream.blogspot.com Slow Burning Car\u2019s fourth studio release, Defection, is an invigorating musical ride from start to finish. They don\u2019t simply bludgeon listeners into submission with a power chord guitar rock attack \u2013 there\u2019s ample intelligence powering the band\u2019s ten songs and they never confine themselves to a single musical approach. Instead, Defection crackles with the same imaginative energy enlivening the band\u2019s previous three releases and, not unexpectedly, finds that the band continues to refine their approach thus focusing their muscle and concentration. Even the album\u2019s comparatively muted tunes surge with raw creativity and carry listeners away from the first. Their musicianship is equally impossible to deny \u2013 they are a band whose performances and songwriting alike command the audience\u2019s attention from the outset and bring us along on a memorable journey. Slow Burning Car\u2019s Defection is an effective and important release in this band\u2019s career. It begins in a powerful, muscular fashion with the track \u201cAlpha Duplicor\u201d. It\u2019s well worth remarking on the band\u2019s talent for whipping up heavy guitars while their songs, no matter the tempo, continue to exert an across the board light touch. That point is driven further home by the album\u2019s second song \u201cSoul Crimes\u201d. Slow Burning Car turns up the pace here in a big way and the guitar attack is charging even harder than before, but there\u2019s never any sense of too much going on here and the production balances things out in an artful, yet physical, way. \u201cThe Orb\u201d comes off as a live take and the way Adam Idell\u2019s drumming brings us into the song reinforces that. Even if this isn\u2019t really a hot take captured for posterity, the band deserves kudos for successfully making it feel like that. The grinding, stop-start quality of the song\u2019s arrangement crossed with vocalist Troy Spiropoulos\u2019 nearly hissed delivery is very notable. \u201cDevil in the Room\u201d is the first of the album\u2019s definite bows to Slow Burning Car\u2019s punk rock influences and they are every bit as artful bringing that sound into the album\u2019s mix as they are with their other musical inclinations. \u201cYou Can\u2019t Stay Here\u201d is another track in that vein and has a much clearer lineage to the form while still twisting the track with the band\u2019s own idiosyncratic songwriting touch. \u201cBedtime\u201d is the more memorable of the band\u2019s two acoustic focused tracks while the second to last song, \u201cPolar Warden\u201d, is a surprising instrumental full of atmospherics and instrumentation that doesn\u2019t appear in the earlier tracks. The album concludes with \u201cClouds\u201d, another unexpected stylistic turn that reinforces the band\u2019s willingness to throw audiences\u2019 expectations out the window. They acquit themselves well with a variety of styles and it is to their credit as both songwriters and musicians that they never fail to sound credible. Slow Burning Car\u2019s Defection is a well thought out, musically entertaining release full of intelligent, accessible songwriting.","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1512,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1,5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slowburningcar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1601"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slowburningcar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slowburningcar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slowburningcar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slowburningcar.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1601"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.slowburningcar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1601\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1602,"href":"https:\/\/www.slowburningcar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1601\/revisions\/1602"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slowburningcar.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.slowburningcar.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slowburningcar.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.slowburningcar.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}