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Slash and Burn [LP]

by GHLOW

/
  • Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    - Limited edition black/white marble vinyl (edition of 100)
    - PNKSLM Exclusive

    Includes unlimited streaming of Slash and Burn [LP] via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 7 days
    edition of 100  2 remaining
    Purchasable with gift card

      €15.99 EUR or more 

     

  • Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    - 12" black vinyl (first pressing)

    ***Please note we don't provide tracking outside of Sweden to keeping shipping costs down – if you want tracking email us at store@pnkslm.com before ordering and we'll set it up.***

    Includes unlimited streaming of Slash and Burn [LP] via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 7 days
    Purchasable with gift card

      €14.99 EUR or more 

     

  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      €5 EUR  or more

     

  • Deluxe package w/ marble vinyl
    Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    - White and black marble vinyl (edition of 100)
    - Black GHLOW t-shirt with silver print

    ***Please note we don't provide tracking outside of Sweden to keeping shipping costs down – if you want tracking email us at store@pnkslm.com before ordering and we'll set it up.***

    ***PLEASE NOTE THE IMAGE IS AN APPROXIMATION OF THE FINAL RECORD AND THE ACTUAL COLORING MAY VARY

    Includes unlimited streaming of Slash and Burn [LP] via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

    Sold Out

1.
2.
Mess With Me 03:55
3.
Take It 04:05
4.
Sleep 04:27
5.
6.
Hollow 04:42
7.
Hold On 03:58
8.
Spit 03:50

about

For Emille de Blanche and Nikolay Evdokimov, their first album as GHLOW represents a rebirth. Both are multidisciplinary creatives; de Blanche works primarily in sculpture, whilst Evdokimov is a tattoo artist. Both have colourful musical backgrounds stretching back decades; de Blanche is a former child prodigy violinist who took up the instrument at the age of two, while Evdokimov, a Russian native, formed his first, politically-charged bands in the early nineties, against the back-drop of the fall of the Soviet Union. One of those, Scang, would eventually see him playing stadi-ums. Neither of GHLOW’s members, though, have ever been involved in anything quite like Slash and Burn, a thrilling clash of punk and electronica that fizzes with a furious energy.

The band were formed in 2017, after a chance encounter; although familiar with each other, mov-ing in similar circles in Stockholm’s underground art world, it wasn’t until de Blanche bumped into Evdokimov on her way to collect supplies for her latest sculptural work that they got talking. Their ensuing conversations suggested that they were each looking for a way to move on from their individual pasts as musicians, and they were quickly commissioned to work on a film score. If the results - which soundtracked Kalle Altin’s short Dom - suggested a deeper bond, then their first EP, released months later, confirmed it: the four tracks on Crystal Memoriz combined stuttering beats with brooding synths to create an imposing atmosphere.

“We came up with a lot of ideas we wanted to develop,” explains de Blanche, whose previous bands had seen her turn her hand to everything from post-rock to hip hop. “We realised that, together, we could pursue them. We both wanted to experiment. There had always been weird, genre-bending stuff we’d wanted to try out in previous bands, but we couldn’t get whoever we’d been working with to go with it. Now, we could just put all of that away and follow our instincts.” The division of labour is equal across the board; de Blanche handles vocals, bass and the band’s art direction, with Evdokimov on guitar, synths, drum machines and production duties.

They share influences too, running the gamut from Dead Kennedys to The Prodigy, as well as fel-low Swedes like revered post-hardcore outfit Breach and doom metallers Switchblade. They agree, though, that their joint outlook on music runs deeper than that: “It’s always been about emotion and passion, for me,” says Evdokimov. “That’s more important to me than genre. I have to understand the outlook of the artist; I need to be burned by it a little bit, almost.”

That perhaps explains why Slash and Burn is such a searing listen; the duo have taken every-thing that signified their potential on Crystal Memoriz and cranked things up several notches on every front. The pace has been upped significantly, with tracks like towering opener ‘Not Fit for This’ and the chaotic ‘Take It’ both cut from the same cloth - punk thrashes that cut along at breakneck speed. Where Evdokimov’s beats were murky on Crystal Memoriz, they’re piercingly polished this time around, setting up dramatic juxtapositions of sound when paired with scuzzy, effects-drenched guitar that recalls the alt-rock of the nineties, a decade crucially formative for both members.

It’s not just that GHLOW are refusing to respect genre boundaries on Slash and Burn, it’s that they’re doing so with such swagger and verve; see the epic title track for a case in point, on which de Blanche’s commanding vocals drip with genuine menace. “After the EP, we realised we wanted the album to be harder,” reflects de Blanche. “When we play live, it’s a physical experi-ence - in the early days, we blew a lot of sound systems because the loudness was so important to us. There’s an intensity to that - a feeling of just wanting to be this vehicle speeding at 110 kil-ometres per hour - and we think we’ve captured it.”

de Blanche’s razor-sharp lyricism blends the personal and political to stirring effect, and Slash and Burn could be read as a cutting treatise on Sweden in 2020. She’s keen to leave the inter-pretation to the listener, though, and the pair insist that her words are only one part of what is a scorched-earth mission statement - a manifesto announcing a powerful new moment both for themselves and for rock music. “There’s a rawness and a violence to Slash and Burn, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing,” says Evdokimov. “It’s about starting again. You might be chopping things down, or setting fire to something, but that’s a reset - something positive comes out of the flames.”

credits

released April 2, 2021

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GHLOW Sweden

Electropunk duo from Stockholm.

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