The current zeitgeist of Deftonescore – artists who have taken the namesake’s trademark blend of foggy atmospherics, heavy shoegaze battering, and vocals that usually switch between airy cooing and ferocious barking – has been well-documented at this point (including by our very website, no less). Something about this sound has proven extremely popular among both the young and middle-aged of today, such that newer heavy shoegaze bands like Wisp are finding themselves opening for Deftones in Toronto within a day of me writing this review. Meanwhile, Deftones themselves dropped private music just weeks ago to rapturous acclaim and nary a dissenting voice from either the general public or music critics at large. It’s a good time to be making sad, horny music.
Of course, as George Lucas famously said, ‘When there is something new, people have a tendency to overdo it. They abuse it.‘ Deftones have been around for 30 years at this point, so why the sudden uptick in artists utilizing this style? If it’s the feelings of isolation brought on by a post-pandemic world being best treated by the warm, cozy wall of sound provided by most heavy shoegaze, then Belgium’s Slow Crush are surely creating some of the purest, finest Deftonescore out there today. Their debut full-length, 2018’s Aurora, followed the formula to a tee: mostly mid-paced, shimmering songs with one-word titles interspersed with high-energy ‘gaze tunes showcasing some obvious Whirr-ship (how many genre and artist concatenations can I squeeze into this review?) and topped off with frontwoman Isa Holliday’s entrancing vocals. If not particularly original, it was very enjoyable and showed the band had a clear grasp on the sound they were emulating. 2021’s Hush took things further, experimenting with sound collage some more on tracks like the ambient opener “Drown” and extending song lengths out on doomgaze epics like the title track and “Lull.” They toured the United States multiple times on the back of Hush and I became very interested in hearing whatever came next for the band.
On Thirst, Slow Crush don’t vary too widely from what was established on their previous records. The differences that do appear come in the finer details, which the band has always excelled at. The opening title track begins at a mid-pace we’ve come to expect from the band with a sticky vocal melody from Holliday, but after just 30 seconds comes the first curveball: the tempo drops down by what feels like more than half as that melody reappears and mutates. The drums take on a beguiling, building rhythm, as if ramping up to what would normally be the climax of a post-rock song… but instead it naturally weaves back into the original tempo of the song while additional power chords and a new time signature muscle their way in. All the while, the drums begin hammering away double-time, organically picking up the pace. Right off the bat, Slow Crush has already worked multiple surprises into just the first four minutes of the album.
Follow-up track “Covet” has even more to unpack. A Nirvana-ish chord progression slathered in effects gives way to an uptempo, bass-heavy verse and simple but affecting lyrics:
‘Why do I feel
Like I’m cold alone?
Without you nothing more
Nothing more to say
Nothing left to do
Empty feeling, blue
When I’m without you‘
The last 30 seconds of “Covet” feature an honest-to-God saxophone solo that is as sublime as it is unexpected. These flourishes help Slow Crush stand out in the saturated Deftonescore landscape: rather than signal a hard left turn into some sort of shoegaze/jazz fusion hybrid (which, to any bands reading this right now, is a mashup genre I’d LOVE to hear), the sax adds a forlorn, melancholy touch that perfectly compliments the song’s themes of feeling safe with someone and empty without them.
“Cherry” shows some clear Deftones influence in its riffing style during its first half, but expecting the unexpected is the order of the day with Thirst, and sure enough, the middle of the song collapses into a breathtaking show of technicality from drummer Frederik Meeuwis, who shows off some dynamic snare drum rolls while the band melts around him. When everybody syncs back up for the final chorus, it creates a feeling whiplash for the listener, as if the tonal back-and-forth of the lyrics (‘Shed, my love, your soft skin‘) manifested in the music itself. It shows just how much Slow Crush‘s songwriting has evolved and matured over the years, how easily the band is able to weave together the tone of their lyrics and music into a single, dreamlike experience.
“Hollow” is an interesting interlude of sorts, with echoing distortion and Holliday‘s abstract lyricism – ‘Scream louder/Draw water/Push me under/Dive down, down in you‘ – culminating in a 20-second explosion of drums and noise that lead directly into the following track “Haven,” which moves between half-time guitar jangling and a stomping, almost nu-metal beat without missing a step. But it’s “While You Dream Vividly” that packs the biggest emotional gut-punch on the album. Beginning with plaintive piano plinking, Slow Crush showcase their artistic acumen for the duration of the song’s five-minute runtime, with the lyrics making reference to blue waves and weightless dreams and what feels like a direct Whirr reference. All this is before the two-minute mark, when a beat that sounds sampled, nigh hip-hop (!) briefly introduces itself and subtly informs the following section of the song. It would be inaccurate to refer to it as a ‘beat switch,’ per se – at least, I think it would be, as the song doesn’t actually change tempo at that point – but it has enough of an impact on the song thereafter that it piques the listener’s curiosity. The last minute of “While You Dream Vividly” sees the band slowly falling away, and that piano melody rears its head again, like a reminder of a love that’s just out of reach, the sense of longing palpable and devastating.
The closing “Hlýtt” – Icelandic for ‘warm’ – begins with strange guitar sounds that sound like something off of Holy Fawn‘s latest album before dropping into another lurching-but-gleaming slowcore number. Holliday‘s lyrics prove as esoteric as ever:
‘Pour your guilt into me
Your hurt won’t hide here
Don’t fade away
And take me where we die‘
But it wouldn’t be a Slow Crush song without a twist, and the last minute of the song picks up the pace once more, thrashing around in its beautiful and chaotic noise – while all the while some screamed vocals appear, making an effective counterpoint to Holliday’s implorations to ‘dream with/of me tonight‘. It’s shocking just how well these deviations work in the context of Thirst, which finds Slow Crush at the peak of both their songwriting and performing powers. Against the odds of standing out in a scene filled with fresh upstarts, they have managed to find their own place in the Deftonescore landscape, one marked with enough experimentation and creativity to dig out new ideas and sound distinct. A mighty thirst for more from Slow Crush, please.
