Hot
on the heels of last year’s near flawless debut, Are You Satisfied? – which came third on this list 12 months ago – Slaves are back. The results are mixed for the two-piece force
of nature. On the one hand, Take Control is a
notable progression. The tracks on Are You Satisfied? are pretty much uniformly
awesome, but were all essentially set to the same 3 minute punk template (title
track aside). They’d hit upon something fantastic,
and went with it. Kudos to them, then,
for ensuring that album 2 both recaptures some of the same blistering slurred
Brit-punk of album 1 (‘Take Control’, ‘Fuck the Hi-Hat’) while at the same time
exploring new ground. ‘Steer Clear’ is a
thoughtful little rumination on the ills of drink driving, while ‘Angelica’
experiments with elements of both electronica and blues. There’s way more range here than before. On the other hand, the songs just aren’t
quite as good. Still close to bothering
the top 10, this is excellent stuff, but the standards set last year were so
high. This all feels a little rushed. Song-writing of the standard of album 1
combined with the range and diversity on show on album 2 would have been
unstoppable. Instead they’ve taken steps
both forward and back.
sample track: Spit it Out