As always the tunes are revealing and cathartic for Taylor, and somehow as their style has become more potent and rocky and less whimsical indie folk, they’ve also become more personal to Taylor, but no less powerful to an audience. It’s been twelve years since they started out, and in that time they’ve grown up in the limelight but not lost any of the vivacity of their early days. Just as energetic and radiant, but with more grit and steel, the new songs have notes of heartbreak, depression, and tension, and in this stripped back setting there’s something very intimate about hearing them.

Confident in their identity, at least as a musical duo, the show is compelling. They eschew perfection in favour of personality, and bring the audience along with them. Witty asides never detract from brilliant songs, and the new ones are just as captivating as those more well known. As one of my favourite bands ever I always slightly fear that they might let me down – play a shit show or come across as arrogant twits. They do neither. They continue to win me over. Finally, a trio of old favourites is ushered in with a sing-a-long Tears of Joy, almost heart melting, before closing with a vibrant Two Cousins. Slow Club are back, and at the top of their game.

It always amazes me that a duo who can write such tender songs of lost love and heartbreak can slip under the radar of most of the UK’s music fans. Who could ever fall out of love with the charming and beautiful Rebecca and disarmingly beguiling Charles? Playing their first gig of 2013 at Proud Camden, Slow Club used tonight to showcase some the tracks they have been busy in the studio writing, which on first listen are just as dazzling as those from their excellent second album Paradise that Rebecca conceded she wished they could ‘dine out on for a bit longer.’
They sparkle across the stage, their songs stuffed full of hooks like ravioli. The glorious If We’re Still Alive kicks off with pounding drums and harsh snares, and Charles’ mellow plucking of the guitar on Never Look Back is a particularly heartfelt moment. The crowd tonight were not the most receptive this writer has ever seen, but this didn’t stop the duo’s exceptional musical intuition capturing that prism of pure magic in the multi-hued spectrum of their music. Two Cousins is simply flooded with intensity and desire to live, and when they close their set with  there is no sense of them ever giving up on such perfect songcraft. Not twee, not folk, not pop, not rock, Slow Club have captured the art of simply taking the best bits of music, mixing them together, and making them work.
With their rattling rhythms and dynamic undulating melodies, beautiful two part harmonies where Rebecca’s soulful and powerful vocals are just as emotive as Charles’ soothing and weathered voice, and a passion and vigour that few bands match either on or off the stage, Slow Club again proved tonight why they are one of the UK’s best bands and why album three is worth waiting for.
Originally on One on One music – see it here!

Released 2nd April, on Cowsnail Records

Reviewed by Francesca Baker

Folk, if not careful, can have a reputation as the home of campestral musings and floral language. Pretty, but a world away from the lives most of us lead. Soulmates Never Die, the musical alias of Joshua Lewis, takes the story telling balladry and organic impartment that the genre does so well, and chucks in tales of city life, cantankerous hormones, chance meetings, and the difficult territory of girls.
Fuzz flecked strums and grazing glides across the fretboard are evident, the apparent lack of production adding both an element of gruff realism and a filter of fractured beauty. Although lyrics are as direct as the emotions inspiring them (‘those tight pink jeans look really good on you’) and stories taken from situations well versed to most of us, the lo-fi production and bedroom recording, along with the use of first names less than perfect articulation of  ‘smoovs’ and ‘birfdays’ means that whilst these are every man feelings, the articulation is intensely personal.
Easy Love is built upon the perfect pop song formula, its consciousness grabbing chord structure, jaunty ïnflections, a breezy melody and a stop start, and new single Rebecca starts in a motion of fuzz that soon kicks into an intensely whimsical delivery. For some reason the opening line of Tiny Rocks invoked lumpy tears; the romance of not engaging in romance in its trussed up fashion. The simple insertion of a ‘not’ in the line ‘let’s take a trip to the beach’ (the reason being that she doesn’t ‘like the sea cos it’s cold’ – a preference I totally agree with) means that the 1 minute 53 second song says more than is usually conveyed in some seven minute epics. ‘You make me feel real’, is surely the most direct a declaration of love and lust that can exist.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHyIUy9kmUk]
It’s this acknowledgement of reality in all its kaleidoscopic elements, and the commitment to convey this in song that makes this an exciting EP. When asked what inspired the songs, the response from Josh said that ‘…waking up in Winter and feeling the cold in an unfamiliar place, wanting to curl up by a fire, longing for the people and the places that made you warm before, but also being excited by changes that are happening and wanting to face them as a new person.’ Being in limbo, discovering yourself, a journey of ups and downs. Life then.
And what a wonderful name.