Dead Slow Hoot are a quartet split between Sheffield and London who have a new EP called A Kinder Kind coming out on June 17, which follows up their 2019 debut album No Reunions. With a couple of singles from A Kinder Kind already out, this week they’ve shared another called “Gesticulating Wildly”, with vocalist Hugo Lynch saying:
“This is about the need to put on a positive public face all the time, acting as if you’re doing well when really it’s a defensive tactic to prevent anyone from asking questions about what’s really going on. It’s sometimes impossible to deconstruct when you so badly want your external image to be real, and this was written in an attempt to be honest with myself in the hope that I could learn to be more emotionally forthcoming.”
That battle between mind and body when it comes to showing emotion is a ripe area for examination, and Dead Slow Hoot make an atmospheric voyage into it on “Gesticulating Wildly”. With guitars that glisten and float, weighted down by the fluttering but un-showy rhythm section, the band sets a perfect canvas for metaphysical musing. Additions of strings only make the song feel more grand, and as they dive headlong into the tumultuous core of “Gesticulating Wildly”, a second, more vicious guitar comes flying in with crackling abandon, pulling the song deeper into the maw. Lynch’s vocals take a back seat for second half of the song, instead Dead Slow Hoot pile on the layers of texture, both beautiful and grinding, effectively reflecting the cognitive dissonance between what one thinks and what one presents to the outside world.
Dead Slow Hoot’s A Kinder Kind EP arrives on June 17. You can find the band on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
