Artist: Slow, Pioneers!

Artist: Slow, Pioneers!

Link: https://www.facebook.com/slowpioneers

The intended meaning of a band name is relatively meaningless. It's the fans who'll be supplying relevant definition. As an example, setting aside actual etymology, here's what the band name “Slow, Pioneers!” means to me: Slow the fuck down, pioneers! No need to find exotic sub-genres that don't age well (dubstep). We'll just do what's tried-and-true that much better.

With a bassist to choke a hippo [Brian Borzym, resident hippo-choker], and charismatic vocalist Eric Maly, who shades to Wilco's Jeff Tweedy (e.g. “Goodnight I Say to You”) and Blur's Damon Albarn (“Jonna Was Right” at 1:49), Slow Pioneers have already found melodic meaning in These Parts.

The standout track of this collection [of demos yet to be Kickstarted?] is “My Star,” which eclipses the Ian Brown (Stone Roses) song of same name. [Since it was the first Slow Pioneers song I heard on SoundCloud, it was so good I had to Google it to ensure it wasn't a cover.]

With sumptuous bass filling the room [I would've said “bass nectar,” but that's been so rudely co-opted by a DJ/producer guy], the memorable track features gentle, well-produced vocals cradled by expert keyboard/piano work. In this regard, one ancestral predecessor could be Alan Parsons Project's “Eye in the Sky” [come on, you like it], but Slow Pioneers can't be lumped into soft rock.

In fact, the very next SoundCloud track, “California,” is an uptempo road song that's built on Borzym's rollicking bass, with song-appropriate piano accents including a variation on Carole King/Herman's Hermits' "I'm Into Something Good" (at 1:27). Indeed they are.

Whether it be the narrator's surfing (“California”) or skating all the way to State Street (“The Details (The Sun Rises in the Heart, Too)”) or the hook of “These Parts,” which starts at :46 and doesn't end till the space invaders won, Slow Pioneers truly does it better.

*** The author of this review, Clarence Ford, plays the o-daiko for the following band: http://youtu.be/tMS73-1kCr8