The millennial vinyl addicts are finally mobilising. According to Empire Records, a song that tellingly references a forgotten 90s movie about workers at independent record shops rebelling against being bought out by a chain, Haley Shea of the Norwegian grunge-pop bawlers Sløtface “dreams of working in a run-down record store” while “thinking of snarky remarks for grandpa’s top five LPs”. On Nancy Drew she berates “boys with acoustic guitars” and, during Magazine, declares: “Patti Smith would never put up with this shit.” For Sløtface, music is too precious to be wasted on the likes of James Bay.
Pitting themselves against an age when the mainstream’s choice of alternative bands such as Catfish and the Bottlemen and Bastille are virtually indistinguishable from its boybands, Sløtface – pronounced Slutface – line up behind Wolf Alice as a new quasi-grunge assault from the underground, revelling in indie rock’s rediscovered cult underdog status.
They pummel Kamio with 45 minutes of gloriously melodic punk pop channelling Metric’s vocals, Nirvana and Pixies guitar wails, the cream of emo and even a spot of new rave on MacGyver, all drenched in party vibes, politics and hints of all-out mania.
When Shea isn’t bawling about “your misogyny” on the febrile Angst, she’s treading the fine line between freewheeling hedonism (Take Me Dancing) and losing it like Vanessa Feltz confined. “I’ll promise I’ll try to keep it together,” she howls on the rattling Try Not to Freak Out, but by the closing Shave My Head she’s threatening to fling plates and bloodied clumps of her hair at a partner who “thought I’d be crazy”. She’s being sarcastic but Sløtface, not a second too soon, suggest wild and unpredictable times ahead.
