Review Summary: "I don't know if there's gonna be anything left of me after this is done, babe, after this is over."
A little known band from the Heartland, Slow Motion Centerfold seems to be a ghost, having risen from obscurity to put out this album before returning quietly into the night. Scouring their now-defunct social media outlets one can glean a few historical facts: they formed in Nashville some time in 2008 as The Minor Kings, they changed their name to Slow Motion Centerfold in March 2010, they launched a kickstarter project around this time to help buy a van for touring, they brought on Kami Knacke of indie promo site
Bands Under the Radar to manage them in June 2010, and in July they officially released their only album,
Rock the Body Language.
The songs on this album were written over a span of at least two years, and it's obvious they were meant to be heard (and seen) live, as they were in the bars and small clubs the band played up til their eventual hiatus. In this way
Rock the Body Language bears a strong similarity to Oasis'
Definitely Maybe in both origin and spirit, though without the latter's success (or snarl). The music is loud, upbeat, mid- to up-tempo, and full of catchy verses and choruses that just
beg to be sung along to. And, perhaps most importantly, this album rocks!
"Chaps" kicks off immediately with only a single beat before vocalist Alex Hall breaks into the opening lines, "This ain't a masterpiece / This is me runnin' my mouth", which sums up the song nicely. Lines about "drawing blood to feed my lust, not my appetite" and "shaping the face of my statue" feed into this apparent nonsense about breaking free of one's self, in spite of one's self. Then comes the band's namesake, "Slow Motion Centerfold" a nigh-emo rocker about the tempering effect of a relationship on one's eccentricities that explodes into a fiery chorus, where it's hinted that the whole affair
is just another eccentricity as Alex sneers: "I don't carry your heart / And I don't care what she said about a rainy day / I don't know if there's gonna be anything left of me / after this is done, babe, after this is over".
It's surprising that, for an indie artist, Slow Motion Centerfold filled this album with nothing but good songs. "My Stimulation" breaks from the fun alt/arena rock vibe of "Alma Rose" with a more despondent and near-industrial sound that at 3:03 turns into psychedelic chaos with wailing fuzz guitar and funky bass and dischordant synthesized piano that eventually come together into a heavy, hard rock outro. "Red Flags (Green Lights)" is groovy—dancey even—and "Military Science" is a super fast rocker in the vein of Deep Purple (compare the riff in the bridge with that of DP's "Child in Time"). "Vann" is the closest thing to predictable on the album as it sonically resembles a downbeat power ballad, but this isn't necessarily a bad thing as the band works it well. "Composure", my favorite track, is high voltage hard rock bursting at the seams with energy and featured a wicked guitar solo to boot. "Deadwood" is a warm and melodious finale. The actual finale, "Plan B", is an electronic piece of psychedelic synthpop that at 2:30 bursts forth with a massive guitar riff and gothic chanting; it's a radical departure from the rest of the album (save maybe "My Stimulation") that works well as a closer.
Following the release of this album, the band went down to Austin to play SXSW in March 2011. They continued on for about a year, and some time in mid-May 2012 they split up. Near as I can tell, that's the last anyone's heard from them, which is a real shame. Many bands rise and fall without so much as a peep, but we brush these off as their output was never good to begin with. But with an album this good, it's a wonder they never got the exposure they so rightfully deserved.
