{"id":41177,"date":"2008-10-24T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2008-10-24T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/make-it-worse\/"},"modified":"2008-10-24T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2008-10-24T00:00:00","slug":"make-it-worse","status":"publish","type":"review","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/make-it-worse\/","title":{"rendered":"Make It Worse"},"content":{"rendered":"

Seattle<\/st1:place><\/st1:city>‘s got grunge.\u00a0 London<\/st1:place><\/st1:city>‘s got Britpop.\u00a0 Even New Zealand<\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region> has something called “Dunedin Sound” (sadly, it doesn’t involve didgeridoo-playing koalas).<\/p>\n

But what about Lancaster<\/st1:place><\/st1:city>?\u00a0 This scrappy Pennsylvania<\/st1:place><\/st1:state> burg has birthed James Buchanan and marshmallow Peeps, but sadly, no signature sound.\u00a0With their debut Make It Worse<\/i>, Slimfit might just change that. <\/p>\n

Lancaster<\/st1:place><\/st1:city>‘s a city in the middle, wedged between Appalachia<\/st1:place> and Philadelphia<\/st1:place><\/st1:city>, influenced by both.\u00a0 Factories and farms struggle side-by-side.\u00a0 Tricked-out Camaros whiz past horse-drawn buggies.\u00a0 Slimfit’s music is as diverse as their hometown, cobbled together from country, bluegrass, Southern rock, and mountain folk.\u00a0 Make It Worse<\/i> evokes everyone from Whiskeytown to the Replacements.\u00a0 The one constant is the group’s respect for their roots.\u00a0 Yeah, music’s a loftier career choice than the turkey-processing plant, but this album’s still undeniably honest.<\/p>\n

The opener, “Midnight Blues,” is a great example of how the group shines — not by reinventing the tractor, but by giving it a fresh set of racing stripes.\u00a0 Its folksy country gains depth and nuance from a mournful viola and cello.\u00a0 The group’s lyrical strength is also immediately apparent.\u00a0 Their songwriting is plainspoken but never trite, no mean feat in the Post-Garth Epoch.\u00a0 The tales are as old as time (dashed hopes, dying towns, evil-hearted women), but they’re told with originality and simplicity.<\/p>\n

Make It Worse<\/i> is musically genuine as well.\u00a0 The title track is straight banjo-picking bluegrass, an unironic love note to rural music.\u00a0 Tracks like this, the deceptively sunny “Never Learn” (\u201cNever been much good at getting much better than by”) and the barn-burning “Fight ‘Til You Die” are keen-eyed and tightly orchestrated.\u00a0 Jeremy Bentley’s sound is well-mixed but unfortunately a bit homogeneous.\u00a0 With the right energy and an open-minded crowd, these songs would absolutely kill.\u00a0 “Fight” in particular brings to mind Mohawks silhouetted against crumbling steel mills\u2026in other words, twang with attitude.<\/p>\n

While the PBR-hoisting anthems are fun, the real intimacy’s in the slow dances.\u00a0 The wistful, whiskey-blurred “Old Song” aches like a war wound (\u201c<\/i>Sometimes you don’t get a chance to recover after everything you’ve been through”).\u00a0 “Dancin’ Shoes” is slight but charming, featuring airy violins and slightly weathered female accompaniment.\u00a0 “That’s Me”‘s warm harmonica and shaggy rhythm feel like a perfect pair of ripped-to-hell jeans.\u00a0 Like many tracks, though, it could close a little more emphatically (songs tend to trail off rather than burn down).<\/p>\n

Like the album, the title Make It Worse<\/i> has a hint of wry country charm.\u00a0 It’s a solid disc which really highlights the group’s potential.\u00a0 It’s a given that Slimfit can make it better — the question is how.\u00a0 Were they to aim for a harder Southern rock vibe, tracks like “Pony Up” and “Which Way You Gonna Go” (which contains a fantastic little burst of fuzzbox distortion) hint that they might give the Drive-By Truckers a run for their money.\u00a0 On the other hand, the group’s more rustic numbers are delivered with joy and authenticity.\u00a0 They’ve got chops in both rock and roots\u2026 it’s a question of which path to take.\u00a0 On the other hand, like a certain U.S.<\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region> president and a squishy Easter confection, Slimfit may remain a proud Lancaster<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> original.<\/o:p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":71,"featured_media":29582,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[8291],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-41177","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-slimfit","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/71"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41177"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41177\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=41177"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=41177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}