Some bands would call this an EP. That would be stupid, of course, but a more sheepish bunch might use the short tracklist as a hedge. Shallowater, on the other hand, are rightly presenting these six songs as their next grand statement.
Not that God’s Gonna Give You A Million Dollars is especially short. This trio’s music sprawls like its West Texas homeland, “where the flowers grow brittle.” Each song is a desolate landscape, parched and ready to be set ablaze when lightning inevitably flashes across the horizon. Whereas Shallowater’s fellow Texans and sometimes tour-mates Teethe play a lush version of slowcore bursting with color and life, you can practically see the tumbleweeds drifting through this album.
Despite the Texas of it all, there’s a lot of Midwest in Shallowater’s blend of slowcore, post-hardcore, and country. The music can evoke Jason Molina’s solemn confessionals one moment, Hum’s all-consuming walls of distortion the next. The NYC slowcore pioneers Codeine obviously loom large. Really, a whole roadmap’s worth of artfully askew American genius is refracted back here, from the rumbling rhythmic undercurrent of Slint to the slow-burn immolation of Greet Death to the string-bending Southern rock onslaught of Wednesday and MJ Lenderman.
With an assist from Wednesday/Lenderman producer Alex Farrar, Shallowater synthesize these touchpoints into an intoxicating blend all their own. The songs patiently unfold across the terrain, lulling listeners into a trance, and then explode at just the right moment with torrents of overdriven guitar. Blake Skipper sings each dirge in mildly twangy sighs and whispers, only occasionally lifting his voice when the music reaches an emotional fever pitch, as when “Sadie” builds toward its moment of cataclysmic release.
Those moments arrive slowly, after lots of patient buildup. Guest musician J.J. Tourville’s trusty pedal steel haunts Skipper’s every step, lending both Southern flavor and celestial ambiance to the proceedings, and Hayden Pedigo lends a guitar solo to closing track “All My Love.” Shallowater let the space between verses and choruses stretch out, letting empty space prevail rather than rushing to fill it up. Repeatedly, bassist Tristan Kelly and drummer Ryan Faulkenberry flex an impressive understanding of when less is more, so that when the time finally comes for more to be more, the impact is resounding.
As you might discern based on the brilliant album title, God’s Gonna Give You A Million Dollars is largely concerned with daily struggles, false promises, spiritual malaise, and the ceaseless search for home. Shallowater’s songs are populated by broken people who are just trying to get by. The unnamed “you” in “Highway,” an old friend who used to “stick out in the congregation/ Sitting at the front of the room/ Singing ‘Be Thou My Vision’ out of tune,” has found some new faraway place to belong. The narrator in “Ativan” — which both creeps more slowly and rocks more energetically than the rest of the album over the course of its nine-minute runtime — begs some close confidant not to give up on him despite his tough circumstances: “A man can’t live on Ativan and ice chips/ But they can keep him kickin’/ They will keep him kickin’.”
Those kinds of details and that kind of phrasing give this album an unmistakable character, and Shallowater’s downcast sonic excursions make an ideal soundtrack for such ruminations. Last year’s debut album There Is A Well found Shallowater approaching this frontier, but its strength was more in the brightness of its melodies and the ragtag immediacy of its songs. This album is something else — a further evolution, a journey deeper into aesthetic mastery. At just six tracks, it’s an experience you can baptize yourself in and come out the other side changed.
God’s Gonna Give You A Million Dollars is out 9/5.
Other albums of note out this week:
• Big Thief’s Double Infinity
• David Byrne’s Who Is The Sky?
• La Dispute’s No One Was Driving The Car
• shame’s Cutthroat
• james K’s Friend
• Fleshwater’s 2000: In Search Of The Endless Sky
• Orcutt Shelley Miller’s Orcutt Shelley Miller
• Cut Copy’s Moments
• Titanic’s Hagen
• SG Lewis’ Titled Anemoia
• Dancer’s More Or Less
• Ivy’s Traces Of You
• Saint Etienne’s International
• El Michels Affair’s 24 Hr Sports
• Suede’s Antidepressants
• Max Richter’s Sleep Circle
• Fime’s Just Can’t Win
• Pickle Darling’s Bots
• No Peeling’s No Peeling
• Lucrecia Dalt’s A Danger To Ourselves
• Will Orchard’s Behind The Shadow Glass
• Lawn Chair’s YOU WANT IT! YOU GOT IT!
• JayWood’s Leo Negro
• Ambush’s Evil In All Dimensions
• Emil Friis’ Moving Images
• blessthefall’s GALLOWS
• Weval’s CHOROPHOBIA
• Curtis Harding’s Departures & Arrivals: Adventures Of Captain Curt
• Tom Odell’s A Wonderful Life
• John Butler’s PRISM
• GHOSTWOMAN’s Civilized World
• BlankFor.ms’ After The Town Was Swept Away
• grandson’s INERTIA
• Gwenifer Raymond’s Last Night I Heard The Dog Star Bark
• Brian Dunne’s Clams Casino
• Liam St. John’s Man Of The North
• Modern Life Is War’s Life On The Moon
• Beauty School Dropout’s WHERE DID ALL THE BUTTERFLIES GO?
• Faetooth’s Labyrinthine
• Cool Whip’s Flame In My Heart
• Alexei Shishkin’s Good Times
• Tchotchke’s Playin’ Dumb
• Anne Murray’s Here You Are
• Lynyn’s Ixona
• Okkyung Lee’s Just Like Any Other Day (어느날): Background Music For Your Mundane Activities
• Shrunken Elvis’ Shrunken Elvis
• Colony House’s 77 (Pt. 1)
• Matthew Ryals & effe effe’s Exalge Live Album
• Harold López-Nussa’s NUEVA TIMBA
• G Flip’s Dream Ride
• Sons Of Sevilla’s Street Light Moon
• Rob Thomas’ All Night Days
• Yoni Mayraz’s Dogs Bark Babies Cry
• Tamar Berk’s ocd
• SAADI’s Birds Of Paradise
• Boyish’s Gun
• Ritual Mass’ Cascading Misery
• Jonah Kagen’s Sunflowers And Leather
• Street Eaters’ Opaque
• Flur’s Plunge
• Okkyung Lee’s Just Like Any Other Day (어느날): Background Music For Your Mundane Activities
• Mike Reid & Joe Henry’s Life & Time
• Cupid’s The Line Dance King
• Alexei Shishkin’s Good Times
• bodie’s NO SKIPS
• Elmiene’s Heat The Streets Mixtape
• Will Linley’s Don’t Cry Because It’s Over
• Pompey’s I’m Scared
• Pulgas’ My Home Is Made Of Tin
• Collapsing Scenery’s Stand Up Tragedy
• The 502s’ Easy Street
• Boy Commandos’ Comet
• Joni Mitchell’s Joni’s Jazz box set
• Slipknot’s Slipknot (25th Anniversary Edition)
• Various artists’ I Will Swim To You: A Tribute To Jason Molina
• Yusuf/Cat Stevens’ On The Road To Findout: Greatest Hits
• Hot Chip’s Joy In Repetition Anthology
• aespa’s Rich Man Mini Album
• Georgia Maq’s God’s Favourite EP
• Fan Club’s Stimulation EP
• Bodyweb’s deadwired EP
• Point Break 2’s Point Break 2 EP
• Fire-Toolz’s Private Angel Message EP
• Oscar Farrell’s So Far South EP
• Iglooghost’s Bronze Claw Iso EP
• Urban Sprawl’s Blood Pact EP
• Jabari’s Ultra EP
• Hamish Hawk’s Covers II EP
• Sophia Stel’s How To Win At Solitaire EP
• SCayos’ felt like forever EP
• Whitmer Thomas’ Tilt EP
• Belmont’s Last To Love EP
• Late Again’s Clearly It’s All Staged EP
• Sophia Stel’s How To Win At Solitaire EP
• plus44Kaligula’s Home EP
