Slow Crush – Thirst (Review)

My first encounter with Slow Crush was a coincidental one, when they were the support act for a Cult of Luna concert a few years ago in Zurich. Since the concert visit was fairly spontaneous for me, I hadn’t prepared myself for the support bands and ended up being pleasantly surprised by both of them. From that moment on, Slow Crush became a constant companion in my music rotation. That’s why I was very curious to see what the four Belgians around Isa Holliday would pull out of their musical hat this time.

The concept of the album is described by the band themselves as “the romance of being with a loved one.” The feeling of being bound yet weightless, of dwelling in the beauty of quiet moments with someone. A beautiful idea that can spark a lot of emotionality in the music.

The album kicks off right away with one of my highlights, the title track “Thirst“. It instantly triggered memories of their previous albums and songs, delivering the signature melodies and rhythms that Slow Crush are known for, yet with careful refinements of smaller sound elements. Another highlight follows immediately with “Covet”, which grabbed my attention through its wonderfully clear riffs.

From “Leap” onward, you can hear a steady transformation in the melodies throughout the album: it becomes more dreamy and emotional, the initial hardness gradually softening and fading away. Isa Holliday’s vocals sound more vulnerable, and the instruments seem to try to comfort her in her pain. Certain elements occasionally remind me of psychedelic/stoner rhythms and riffs, such as the opening moments of “Leap”, but ultimately they are liberated again by Slow Crush’s distinct shoegaze sound. Hollow, however, fully sinks into that realm—only to smash the pain it conveys back at the listener at the end with heavy riffs and growls. “Haven” features wonderfully hard riffs in its musical digressions, while “While You Dream” begins with piano and remains firmly in a dreamy sphere. And so it continues for the rest of the album—these core elements stay present, and it never deliberately returns to the clearer structures of the opening tracks.

What immediately stood out to me was that the production quality of the songs—and of the album as a whole—has taken a significant step forward. On top of that, the arrangements of the instruments and ideas are even more tightly interwoven into the overall concept of the songs and the record than in their previous work. You can clearly tell they’ve been honing and refining their sound over the last four years.

Especially the riffs in the first half of the album are recorded with a wonderful crispness that forcefully lift Isa Holliday’s dreamy vocals into the listeners’ ears without disturbing the emotional layer. I also have to praise the courage to deliberately incorporate more electronic support in places, even though, for me personally, the album occasionally drifted into being a bit too dreamy, spinning one loop too many. Still, the album never truly gets lost in those elements and ultimately left me with a feeling of hope and reassurance, as “Hlýtt” does not release the listener into its dreaminess entirely, but rather pulls them back out, sending them off with a smile and a wonderful punch of heaviness in its final third.

“We want people to let themselves go and feel embraced by the music, so that they can experience it in 4D. That’s what we hear a lot from people who come to see us live, or people who’ve listened to our previous albums, that we take them to another dimension,” Isa Holliday said in conversation with the label Pure Noise Records. Was that feeling captured again—a feeling I had both at the concert and when occasionally listening to their songs? Absolutely, I can definitely say that. Still, in some way I expected something different. I find myself torn between the thought that this is either more of the same or nuanced expansions of their musical idea that I should appreciate.

Not every song works for me, but definitely enough of them do for me to value Thirst as a whole—especially for what it is: a side of Isa Holliday that feels vulnerable and sincere. And I think fans of the band and of the genre will be happy with this album as well. But perhaps it will once again take a live concert, letting myself be carried away by Slow Crush into another dimension, for me to fully embrace and appreciate this record.