SLOW PULP
Slow Pulp is a cross-country road trip in the middle of summer. The windows are open. The cloudless skies, listless wind, and beaming sun blanket you as you inch towards your destination.
Last week, the Madison-based rock band Slow Pulp performed at The Chapel in San Francisco. After over a year since their last SF show at Cafe du Nord, they blessed The Bay once more with their presence during the latter half of their US tour. Bump writer Mando knew he had to see them again.
Bandmates Teddy Matthews, Emily Massey, Henry Stoehr, and Alex Leeds have constructed a landscape in which the essences of rock, punk, and pop live harmoniously. Slow Pulp creates music you throw on after an emotionally draining day - music to break the monotony and escape the mundane.
The sounds blasting from The Chapel’s speaker system engulfed me. Guitar riffs danced between crushingly heavy and fleetingly ethereal - drums morphed dynamically from high-energy to slow-moving beats, and enveloping bass lines permeated every pore of my body. Over and through it all, Massey’s angelic vocalizations and melancholic lyrics sent me smiling to another world.
Soon enough, Slow Pulp played my favorite track off their latest EP, Big Day. This song toys with you. High begins in a deep pit of feeling, Emily Massey’s somber vocals and Henry Stoehr’s acoustic guitar conveying overwhelming anxiety and fear. Just when your world is all sweaty palms and clenched-tooth frustration, these emotions are ambushed by crunchy guitar chords, gut-wrenching beats and a bass line to match. It’s the kind of song you find on repeat, a departure from neuroticism, from it all. An anthem for those in need of escape.
Slow Pulp is a gem. If you’re in the Chicago area, they’re playing the final show of their current tour on August 2nd, 2019. We hope to catch them live again as soon as possible, and we hope you will too. It goes without saying - we can’t wait to see what else this band has in store.
