By Grace Guimond, Feature Photo via Old Gray Bandcamp

Slow Burn is the kind of record that never should have to be written. Slow Burn is the kind of record that everyone hopes they will never have to write, that no one ever wants to have to write–– except for when the pain becomes so overwhelming, so unbearable, barely contained below the surface and threatening to bubble up at any second and implode into an endless gulf. The only way out is destruction or creation. Self-destruction isn’t an option; so you write and write and write and this is the final result. 

Slow Burn is about the ones we lose along the way when it should have been us. Slow Burn is about the friends you couldn’t save and about the self you still can. Slow Burn is a letter to your middle school best friend who decided the world would be better without them, to everyone you went to high school with who gave up too soon, a prayer to your 16 year-old self begging you to put it down and call your mom instead. 

By far Old Gray’s most intimate and mature release yet, Slow Burn sounds like a 90s skramz record mixed with revival-era mathy emo mixed with your friend-who-always-had-a-gift-for-writing-and-it’s-such-a-shame-what-happened from high school’s diary. Slow Burn matures Old Gray’s spoken-word style narrative conceived in their earlier releases, but veers far from the easily-overdone, melodramatic narration of similar late 2000s emo band. The intense harsh/soft/loud/quiet dynamic prevent the record from sounding like a re-write of older Old Gray albums, and the nods to 90s emo (<50 seconds tracks) don’t go unappreciated. If you only cry to one album this year, cry to this. Flower Girl Records