Slow Pulp – Melodie Review

Chicago-based indie darlings Slow Pulp are back with their third record, Melodie, an album that could be considered a coming-of-age record as the band sings about coming to terms with aspects of their past as they enter their thirties. With an already impressive collection of albums under their belt, Melodie feels like it has a lot to live up to, and I think it’s managed to do that pretty well.

Kicking the album off with the track Yellow and Green, we’re once again bathed in the band’s rich Midwest, folksy sound as the gentle instrumental provides a lush background for Emily Massey’s ethereal, reverb-soaked voice, setting the stage for what’s to come. We’re not diving straight into the band’s more power-pop side just yet, despite dropping Better Man as their first single.

We instead move into These Days, a song that reminds us that Slow Pulp have some Midwest roots, blending the folksy sounds of acoustic guitars, banjos, and… turntable scratching? I know, I know, it sounds odd, but it actually works. It’s subtle, but reminds me a lot of the type of music you’d hear in teen movies from the mid-00s. It might seem like a weird choice, but it genuinely had me smiling.

What I find most interesting about Melodie is that the band fell back into their old way of working. Before the release of their debut, Moveys, they found themselves isolated due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This meant working on ideas separately, sending them back and forth between one another, and building out songs from there. With Melodie, according to the band, a similar thing happened.

Massey and guitarist Henry Stoehr were sending songs to one another during the conception of this album, with Stoehr actually taking more of a prominent role in the songwriting. Better Man, for example, Melodie‘s first “upbeat” song, is actually written from Stoehr’s perspective, about how over the years he learned to deal with some of the flaws of his past. The best part: Massey didn’t feel the need to change the lyrics. A testament to just how collaborative this band is together.

I will say that Melodie does feel a little more stripped back than previous albums. There are more slow songs, some piano ballads, a sprinkle of shoegaze, and the odd power-pop/indie rock song. But I feel that this is intentional. The album tells stories of isolation, loneliness, and breakups – though in Yellow and Green Massey does share that the song’s breakup was “the best thing to happen” to her.

At its core, it’s an album about growth, and while this is the subject matter of the lyrics, it also feels like the band has grown since their earlier work. It’s worth noting, though, that this isn’t an album that has the band look at their older selves to congratulate themselves on becoming better people; it’s more of an understanding that they’ve grown, but it’s just the start of that growth. They may be in a better place now, but they’re not planting roots and saying, “this is it”. They’re understanding the journey and looking ahead at what’s next.

Melodie is a great indie rock album; I only wish it were longer. Coming in at 33-ish minutes, it ends before I feel like I’ve really settled in. This is Slow Pulp’s longest album thus far, I might add, so we’re pretty used to entering the band’s world only for it to end before we’re really ready to let go.