Slow Down Molasses – Walk Into The Sea

In 2007 I went down to Azimuth Theatre to see a band from Saskatoon called Slow Down Molasses. It was a Push Pins show and those never failed, so I knew to expect something either boundary pushing or extremely apt within a tried and true boundary. With a seven or eight (or nine?) person ensemble, they made a very large quiet sound, if you get my drift. They made folk that was slanted toward the beautiful, the enchanted, the ethereal. The record at first sounds thoroughly traditional, a straight shooter by people who know how to play their instruments and know how to play as a band. But with time these recording betray the creative accentuations Slow Down Molasses has filled everything out with. These granular flourishes are so subtly mixed that they blend in effortlessly with the more familiar firmaments of indie folk. Listening to the lead track on Walk Into The Sea, a jam called “Sometimes We All Fall Apart”, you hear how equally talented this band is at harnessing that musically erudite precision and signature ‘large quiet’ into a recording. They know how to let the guitars bay and squeel their dissonance without once taking away from the beauty of the composition. Most songs feature long instrumental movements and an almost choral layering of vocals. The lead singer, Tyson McShane, has a very cavernous tremor in his voice that seems to compliment the lyrical content precisely. And the beautiful ghostly female vocals behind the majority of McShane’s leads fills the band’s utterances with a haunting resonance—”Don’t fall too deep…I knew by the way the sun hit your eyes, You’d be mine…Don’t fall asleep.” It all fits very smugly over the orchestral vibration they manage to channel on most every song.
Look out for the lead track and for bangers like “Late Night Radio”. “Fade Out” and “As Meant To Be” are also some total gems.
Reflecting on the duality of Saskatoon and Regina, not unlike Edmonton and Calgary, it would not be unreasonable to call Saskatoon’s Slow Down Molasses the beautiful folk counterpart to Regina’s indie popping Library Voices.
Come see Slow Down Molasses play with Jeans Boots (blogged about yesterday’s yesterday) and OLD UGLY’s own Jessica Jalbert (with the band!) at WUNDERBAR this saturday, March 12th. Event Details.