Brooklyn’s David Blaine’s The Steakhouse has birthed yet another promising act. The project of Trace Mountains and Painted Zeros bassist Jim Hill, with LVL UP’s Greg Rutkin on drums and Catalonia’s Alberto Casadevall on bass, Slight strikes as a departure from anything we’ve heard from the members’ projects before, but it’s every bit as appealing. The first release from Hill’s solo project, August’s townie490 EP, was a diverse array of dreamy fuzz-pop and frustrated punk tracks, while the new two-track Run hits a more cohesive sweet spot somewhere in between.
“Run” is simultaneously a love song and a song about coming to terms with your own mistakes—as some of the best love songs tend to be. It’s more about frustration and foiled plans than anything. Hill’s exasperated sigh of, “I woke up late again” calls to mind the bottled energy that remains to be used when the day’s gotten away from us, and it’s as if the band has channeled that energy and let it seep through the instrumental arrangement. Slight shuttles between breakouts of big guitars and crashing drums and comparably muted sections of rhythmic fuzz, a ripple of energy running just beneath the surface all the while. Hill’s vocal inflections are potent, reminiscent of Yuck’s Daniel Blumberg, especially against the fuzzy power chords—and his buildup from a more restrained vocal style to the insistent cry at the song’s blown-out conclusion is powerful enough to leave a sizeable ache.
You can download “Run” and its B-side, “The News”, from Slight’s Bandcamp.
