Released last September, it was time for me to explore Yard, a new album by Slow Pulp. An unexpected yet profoundly moving journey. Review.
YARD – SLOW PULP
It smells like the crackling fire coming from the fireplace. The reason? Gone 2 started on this new album by Slow Pulp, Yard. Introspective, the record approaches isolation, insecurities, and confidence – the one addressed to oneself, the one addressed to others. The pop-punk sound of the Chicago band gets intimate and familial. Of course, saturated guitars on some of the main tracks (like the excellent Doubt, Cramps, and Worm) are vigorous, sharp, and violent. Once again, there is a brilliant contrast with the rasps and whispers of Emily Massey’s vocals.
The tracks revealing more about this contrast are also touched by a lovely bitter-sweet nostalgia. It’s a distant memory of clear laughter, and a thousand questions are flowing. Or it’s a specific setting, an engraved lightning, of a time when insecurities had not fully blossomed. Slugs and the acoustic Yard, Carina Phone 1000, and Broadview are superb instances of it. And Fishes, as the last track, is its ultimate flag bearer. The garden of a now inaccessible childhood house, or the inner courtyard of a gone building, these places still exist in the notes of this record.
Because, if the band can connect with real places, it’s an instant that turns them into a fond memory and later into a mental image. There is for me a connection between reality and the past, the before and the now. With Yard, Slow Pulp also cracks open a door to the future. Complete, this second record is a pearl of confidence that awakens old memories and helps fight, or at least understand, insecurities that can overwhelm us.
