Slow Pulp – Melodie

Slow Pulp, the beloved Chicago via Madison band of Emily Massey (vocals/guitar), Henry Stoehr (guitar), Alex Leeds (bass), and Teddy Mathews (drums), announce their highly-anticipated third album, Melodie, out September 18th via ANTI-.

In conjunction, they present the pulsating lead single, “Better Man.”

On the track, written by Stoehr, crashing percussion and anthemic guitar give way to a gripping vocal performance from Massey. Slow Pulp have never sounded so locked in. The accompanying video, directed by Ben Turok, is their most compelling visual yet.

The opening lyrics–“Did I fuck it up again // Maybe leave it to a better man // Who can tell himself this is how it’s supposed to be”–are self-questioning. Stoehr elaborates: “I realized that I had let go of the controls of my own life and instead was fully prioritizing what I thought people around me wanted from me. I reckon that I did this, at least in part, because I felt really chaotic and out of control of my emotions and actions as a kid and in my early twenties, in a way that I’ve always been very self conscious about. In my mid 20s, I entered a phase in my life that felt really stable. I had felt so turbulent emotionally up until that point and I desperately wanted to feel that I deserved to experience that. Naively, I thought that I could just extinguish that kid that fucked up all the time and couldn’t control himself. This song is me both letting go of control but taking control of myself in a new way, and accepting myself for who I am, and hoping that can be accepted by everyone else.”

Slow Pulp met in Madison, WI in the mid 2010s, kicking off a decade-strong musical bond. Raised on ’90s alt-rock radio and coming of age during the 2000s indie wave, they took a pan-American approach to rock music—transcending the genre’s inner boundaries in service of a sound critics across the board have applauded but struggled to describe—that made them stand out in the small city’s scrappy scene.

Following the notable reception of two EPs and a move to Chicago, they released their groundbreaking debut LP Moveys, an album created under unpredictable circumstances. Massey returned to Madison to take care of her parents, who were healing from a severe car accident, and ended up recording vocals with her dad. A 2022 COVID scare forced Massey to write many of the lyrics for that album’s follow-up, 2023’s Yard, in a cabin in northern Wisconsin, but the band took it in stride again, sending stems back and forth across state lines. If Moveys put Slow Pulp on the global stage—on tour with the Pixies and Death Cab for Cutie and Alvvays, bands they’d bonded over in those early Madison years—then Yard proved they belonged there.

When Slow Pulp started the songs that comprise Melodie, they found themselves being reflective of their relationships and lives in the last few years. In most of Slow Pulp’s time living in Chicago, lyrics have mostly been helmed by Massey’s (hence the solo trips north). But for Melodie, Stoehr honed in on songwriting, writing five songs on the record. “Emily and I were reconnecting with how we wrote together when we first met,” Stoehr says. Part of the brilliance of this album is that, without looking at the credits, one can’t be sure whether Stoehr or Massey wrote any given track. This is especially true of the songs into which both writers injected pieces of themselves.

Working with producer Elliot Kozel (Rosalía, Yves Tumor, Björk, SZA, Eartheater) was a new experience for the whole band, but especially for Stoehr, who’d produced every Slow Pulp album on his own up to that point. Bringing Kozel into the fold felt, on the one hand, like entering uncharted waters. On the other hand, Kozel is something of a Wisconsin legend, and Stoehr, Mathews, and Leeds had all grown up as fans of his old band, Sleeping in the Aviary. Melodie also marked the first Massey was in the booth. As an admitted control freak, Stoehr says ceding some of that power was hard at first, but he quickly found that splitting production duties with a trusted bandmate and a seasoned pro was enriching. The production collaboration of Kozel, Stoeher, and Massey led to a record that balances power-pop euphoria, acoustic heartbreak, and the ocean of sound between them.

For Slow Pulp, the writing (other than the lyrics) and recording process has always been a collaborative effort. Everyone in the band plays multiple instruments, and, according to Leeds, “It’s always by any means necessary—whatever sounds best and whoever has done it or can do it.”Leeds, too, feels like Melodie is about returning to the past. “There’s the sense of a full circle, tapping back into things and transforming through them,” he says. A song is like that too, he believes: “not just a document of what you feel but also a vehicle for understanding how you feel.”

This fall, Slow Pulp will embark on an expansive North American headlining tour. This fall, they’ll play their biggest hometown show to date at the Salt Shed, plus dates in New York City, Philadelphia, Boston, Los Angeles, San Diego, and more.

Slow Pulp Tour Dates
Fri. Oct. 16 – St. Louis, MO @ Delmar Hall %
Sat. Oct. 17 – Omaha, NE @ Slowdown %
Mon. Oct. 19 – Denver, CO @ Ogden Theatre ∞
Wed. Oct. 21 – Salt Lake City, UT @ The Grand at The Complex ∞
Fri. Oct. 23 – Portland, OR @ Revolution Hall ∞
Sat. Oct. 24 – Seattle, WA @ The Showbox ∞
Tue. Oct. 27 – San Francisco, CA @ The Fillmore ∞
Thu. Oct. 29 – Los Angeles, CA @ The Wiltern ∞ !
Fri. Oct. 30 – San Diego, CA @ Quartyard ∞
Sat. Oct. 31 – Phoenix, AZ @ Crescent Ballroom ∞
Tue. Nov. 3 – Dallas, TX @ The Echo Lounge & Music Hall ∞
Wed. Nov. 4 – Austin, TX @ Emo’s ∞
Thu. Nov. 5 – Houston, TX @ White Oak Music Hall Downstairs ∞
Sat. Nov. 7 – Atlanta, GA @ Variety Playhouse ∞
Sun. Nov. 8 – Carrboro, NC @ Cat’s Cradle ∞
Mon. Nov. 9 – Washington, DC @ 9:30 Club $
Thu. Nov. 12 – Philadelphia, PA @ Union Transfer $
Fri. Nov. 13 – New York, NY @ Brooklyn Paramount $ *
Sat. Nov. 14 – Boston, MA @ Roadrunner $ *
Mon. Nov. 16 – Toronto, ON @ Danforth Music Hall $
Tue. Nov. 17 – Detroit, MI @ Saint Andrew’s Hall $
Thu. Nov. 19 – Chicago, IL @ The Salt Shed $+
Fri. Nov. 20 – Minneapolis, MN @ First Avenue $
Sat. Nov. 21 – Madison, WI @ The Sylvee $ #

% = Feller   ∞ = Snuggle.  $ = Her New Knife.  ! = Goon.  * = Ivy  # = Graham Hunt  
+ = Current Union TM

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