One of the hardest things to explain to normies is why anyone would want to listen to someone screaming. This is especially true with the more abrasive subgenres of our wonderful scene; it’s easy to get someone to understand how you can get into Stand Atlantic or even Hands Like Houses, but how do you explain to Nanna that the new single by Thy Art Is Murder is a proper banger? At the very least, I think our collective Nannas have a reasonable point, so I’d like to talk a little bit about what we love about this bizarre subculture and what makes it important. I’m not going to give a history lesson on punk and metal, because I think there are better sources than me for that. I’m just going to be using a lens that covers our lived experience as adults who never outgrew our emo phase.
--
Slowly Slowly have been a part of my life for longer than some of my friends. They’re a key way that I can communicate with my partner through music as she slowly grows out of her emo phase and I grow into mine. Our record collections are entirely different and only a few albums sit in the “us” category. Slowly Slowly take up a large proportion of that esteemed position, in no small part because we physically own their entire discography with the exception of their 7” split with Luca Brasi. We’re also fans of vocalist Ben Stewart’s pop side project, Congrats. In fact when he supported Trophy Eyes, we were - and remain - convinced that as a one-man-band he put on the better live show. It was not at all out of character for us to snap up a copy of the new Race Car Blues Extended Edition as soon as it went on sale, certain that Slowly Slowly could do no wrong.
