SLOMO: L-DOPA | 4ZZZ Brisbane 102.1FM

- SLOMO never stop moving: Jem King’s axe-work really owns the idea of a chugging guitar riff and -without some real effort on the part of the band- it’s like the songs get uncontrollably louder, more rambunctious and out of hand. However, there's a dual quality to the Melbourne rockers. There’s a mesmerising effect that only grows with the noise. It cuts you, the listener, loose from the rhythm and everything else for that matter. It’s like when you watch the spinning spokes on a wheel, after a while, they appear to turn backwards and suddenly you’re spinning off into who knows where. Transcendental states induced by the ritual production of giant volumes of noise is nothing new to fans of psych and the many styles it spawned, but SLOMO, perhaps even in their name, seem more committed to all of those styles and the religious observance of noise.

If the band name’s not enough, there’s also their debut full-length, L-DOPA, referencing a lesser known but powerfully versatile amino acid and its synthesised form, which is sold as a psychoactive drug. The pill-popping vibes gelled quite well with the ethereal shoegaze / dreampop sounds that were my first taste of SLOMO. You can hear them wafting out of recent single Fit Right. Forgive my prejudice, but shoegazers aren’t generally known for adventuring very far outside of their genre, so in the space of one song I thought I had this band pegged. I didn’t.

Those monumental guitar-riffs, you can hear them in Fit Right, but they're not really that smooth cliff of sound you expect from shoegaze. They start appearing everywhere and for a while it really skittled my impression of the band. If you take a gander at their list of influences then you might have some idea of what to actually expect from L-DOPA: Fuck Buttons, Sonic Youth, Battles, Mogwai, even Radiohead get a nod. Not so sure about that last one, except inasmuch as SLOMO are fearlessly eclectic in their musical choices. They really are though, L-DOPA is like a flipbook through heavy and head-melting sounds: noise-rock, stoner, math-rock, kraut, shoegaze, post-rock; so you could assuredly throw My Bloody Valentine, Kyuss and Can on to that list. Shellac as well, for that matter: lots of people talk about the post-punk in SLOMO’s sound and it’s definitely there. Post-punk is such a broad church, however, it’s more like it acts as the backboard of the great big ballpark that this band plays in.

I can’t help but feel there’s a sense of joy when SLOMO get to work, as they try on yet another style, gleefully pushing it to its limits as the riffs get noisiest, most out of control. The nonsensical, dreamstate lyrics “The electric sea, it relies on me!” “Suffice to live in mono!” “Talk out loud to those who care / Slow motion it fills the air!” are like speaking in tongues, an ecstatic religious experience and a devotional act at one of rock’n’roll’s most mystical altars. I’ve never considered myself a believer, but if L-DOPA is the hymnbook, I could attend the church of SLOMO.

- Chris Cobcroft. 
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