Not Many Experts

There are lots of good things about T H E S L O W D O W N, for instance:

• their music is taut, honest and energetic and overall very good, which is still at least fleetingly important in this music business
• they are from Manchester and I will therefore have to travel only a very short distance to see them play
• their name (their third this year, after B I G S L E E P and Drive Like I Do) is all spacious and aesthetically pleasing

however, it should also be pointed out that:

• their press shots, correctly or incorrectly, make them look like a washed up version of The Wanted
• the expansive, anthemic feel of both “SEX” and “Ghosts” mean that there’s a possibility that your dear mother will be listening to this in a year’s time after Radio 2’s Jeremy Vine has cracked a hilarious one-liner relating to the fact that the band is very wild and has named their song after something he rather likes doing.

Still, the first point is mostly based on jealousy and the second just suggests that it’s all the more important for you to knock hundreds of listens out of “SEX” so that it seems turgid, cynical and characterless to you next year, so you can criticise it when your mum suggests it to you . Try to enjoy it for a bit though, because despite the fact that they’re on their third name already, it’s an exceptionally well formed sound for a band so young to the business. Widescreen indie’s really not my thing, but I just can’t help sticking this on repeat.

T H E S L O W D O W N – SEX by Dirty Hit

You can listen to “Ghosts” here.