New Slough Feg music

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I have a love/hate relationship with Slough Feg. The part I love is the music, which is so good that it batters aside my distaste for self-consciously retro metal. The part I hate is Scalzi’s crotchety public attitude about the inferiority of the modern metal scene, which you can read about at length in his short-lived Bullpen Bulletins column here on IO.

At least, I think I hate that part. A lot of his assertions in those columns — about growled vocals, about the putative lack of ‘real songs’ in contemporary metal, about digital music, about kids these days — still rub me the wrong way. But he’s fundamentally right that there’s a lot of bullshit clogging up the works right now. (As there always has been, but we have newfangled 21st-century bullshit to contend with these days.)

The new Slough Feg album, Digital Resistance, deals directly with these issues. Its song titles include “Analogue Avengers” and “The Luddite.” This preoccupation with the evils of internet music culture should bother me, but it’s hard to get riled when the songs are so good. Plus, I’ve come around to Scalzi’s way of thinking to a small degree.

I’m hoping to write about Digital Resistance at more length in the future; for now, you can stream the title track below. It’s basically the second single from the album, after the demo version of “Laser Enforcer” that appeared last summer. Like most of Slough Feg’s music, it is direct, passionately played, and thoroughly tuneful.

Digital Resistance comes out on February 18th via Metal Blade.

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