• Reviews

• All
• Music
• DVDs
• Live
• Cinema
• TV
• Books
• Comic Books
• Video Games

Jul 01, 2015 Web Exclusive By Cody Ray Shafer

With their debut Performance, Outfit opened two possible creative paths. They easily could have cranked it up a notch and followed it up with a dance-fused electronic record brimming with melody and pop bliss. Or turned their sound inward, for a more focused and elegant exploration of the darker musical themes introduced on their debut. As the album title implies, Slowness is clearly the latter.

Without dwelling too much on what might have been, this approach feels a bit like the more obvious choice. Slowness comes off slightly less original than its predecessor, blending in with the dark wave indie of recent years such as Arthur Beatrice and Warpaint. But honestly, Outfit still stands out. Slowness may be stingy with upbeat moments, but it is satisfyingly complex. If anything, this album confirms the band’s tendency for weaving jarring and unrelated musical ideas into a brilliant fabric of dense sound. High points are few and far between, but there’s rarely an instance when the sound emanating from the speakers isn’t simply beautiful.

In the end, Slowness is a competent follow-up, if only barely less interesting than Performance. But there are so many good ideas Outfit are pushing through on this record it is easy to forgive them of a little repetition. (www.outfit.band)

Author rating: 7/10