Slow Club @ Holocene

Since forming in Sheffield in 2006, Slow Club have released two EPs and two albums, each showcasing different and distinct facets of their musical DNA. While most bands seem happy to rest on their laurels, afraid to push their sound forward, multi-instrumentalists Rebecca Taylor and Charles Watson get a bit bored of recreating the same things over and over. So while their 2009 debut album Yeah So was a beautifully ramshackle collection of country and folk-tinged strumalongs, 2011's more experimental Paradise — produced by Luke Smith (Foals, Everything Everything, Fryars) — pushed and pulled the band into myriad new musical directions. But nothing can quite prepare you for the quantum leap that takes place on their beautifully epic forthcoming third album, Complete Surrender.

Recorded with producer Colin Elliot, who's previously helped create an equally widescreen sound on albums by Richard Hawley, Complete Surrender touches on everything from Motown and the output of Memphis' Stax Records to the immaculately produced pop of the 1970s, via Frankie Valli and David Bowie. "I was listening to a lot of Michael Jackson, Marvin Gaye, lots of 70s stuff," states Charles, reflecting the fact that the band's varied musical reference points shift and change all the time. Rebecca, for example, spent a lot of time between albums luxuriating in the straight up pop of Katy Perry and Taylor Swift, before shifting focus to the likes of Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt and Fleetwood Mac. "The way these women would tell a story and open their hearts and be simple and truthful in their lyrics really inspired me," she explains.

The first seeds of what would become the album were sowed towards the end of the Paradise tour, with the Phil Spector-esque, lustful ballad "Not Mine To Love" and the sighing "Everything Is New" first aired in a live scenario. "Those songs were connecting so much quicker with people and you can tell from a crowd what's working and what isn't," Rebecca says. "For some bizarre, magical reason Charles and I were both on the same page with this album. I remember the first time we spoke about what we wanted it to sound like and we were both agreeing and it was like 'wow, gosh'." And that sound was something far simpler and more straightforward than what they'd created on Paradise: "Just keeping it bass, guitar, drums, strings, brass, really classic and to the point. I think we've grown up and you get impatient with music and you want it to make sense."

As with most things in Slow Club world, the shift in sound wasn't some massively pre-planned decision, more just a natural evolution. "A lot of these songs are just us playing them live as opposed to on the last record where we didn't really do it like that," continues Charles. "It was fun at the time but we've had two more people in the band now so having more people play the songs on stage definitely changes your perception of how the band could be better. It felt like we were more of a gang doing it." Mostly written in a pool-house hideaway in Stroud, away from temptation and distraction, Complete Surrender - despite being released nearly three years after Paradise - actually came quite quickly, with songs started in January 2013 and the bulk of the album finished by May.

This sense of economy can be heard in the songwriting, which is allowed more of a chance to shine cocooned as it is in simple but effective melodies. "We knew that this record was going to be a lot more straight — more about the songs than anything," says Charles. "We spent a lot more time on the songs rather than the production or pre-production. So I think we just wanted that to speak for itself really." "It's more about the emotion in the lyrics and then the music would compliment that," agrees Rebecca. "On the last record we wanted to be obscure and push things to sound strange, whereas this one was completely the opposite really." That's not to say that the songs are sparse or bare-boned; in fact with lashings of strings buoying songs like the effervescent title track and the pogoing, Brian Wilson-influenced "Suffering You, Suffering Me," it's almost what you might call 'lush'. Rebecca has her own theories as to why. "We're just at an age now where we want it to sound more expensive and for life to be more fabulous," she giggles. "That's all it was really. I don't find there's anything more beautiful than that sound."