After a watershed year in 2019, Melbourne rock favorites Slowly Slowly are kicking off 2020 with the announcement of their third album ‘Race Car Blues.’ The follow up to their critically-acclaimed 2018 effort ‘St. Leonards,’ ‘Race Car Blues’ launches today with the reveal of the album’s title track and music video, before the release lands in full on Friday, February 28th.
The album captures a formative period for Slowly Slowly frontman Ben Stewart. Where ‘St. Leonards’ found him reflecting on his entire life – harking back to painful moments and trying to rectify them – this album traverses through a crucial 18 months of self-assessment and development. Describing soaring album closer ‘Race Car Blues’ in more depth, Stewart explains that the song was something of a “hard chat” with himself. The track and accompanying music video capture Stewart grappling with the incongruence between where he was as a person and artist and where he wanted to be. Though the track and record as a whole offer a space for Stewart‘s pain and struggle to breathe, ‘Race Car Blues’ ultimately declares a new era of triumph.
“For me, ‘Race Car Blues’ (album) feels like not being a victim anymore, in any sense of it, and taking responsibility,” he says. “You realize as you get to your late 20s, no one’s going to fix you, no one gives a fuck, the world keeps turning and everyone’s on their trajectories. If you’re not looking out for yourself, you’ll just get left behind or fall by the wayside, you’ll wake up, and all of those dreams you had don’t get actualized. For me, it was about knuckling down and asking myself, “what’s important to me?”. If being a good, honest songwriter was important to me, I’m going to be a lot better at that if I’m a happier person in myself, and confident. It was about creating an environment where I could do that.”
Elsewhere, ‘Race Car Blues’ features slow-burners like ‘Suicidal Evangelist’ and ‘How It Feels,’ the explosive and defiant ‘You Are Bigger Than This Town,’ while soaring rock choruses are found on ‘Creature Of Habit,’ ‘Michael Angelo’ and more. Fueled by their joint musical foundations in rock and punk, the band – completed by guitarist Albert Doan, bassist Alex Quayle and drummer Patrick Murphy – set out to create a record their teenage selves would love. As is synonymous with their style of writing, vivid lyricism is also on display from front to back. With their most commanding work to date in the pipeline and mounting critical and fan attention, 2020 is shaping to be another landmark year for Slowly.
‘Race Car Blues’ tracklist:
01. Creature Of Habit
02. 19
03. Safety Switch (feat. Bec Stevens)
04. You Are Bigger Than This Town
05. Michael Angelo
06. Soil
07. Suicidal Evangelist
08. Jellyfish
09. How It Feels
10. Superpowers
11. Creature Of Habit Pt. 2
12. Race Car Blues