Slow Pulp - Melodie
2026 • ANTI- • INDIE ROCK / DREAM POP / GRUNGE
89/100
Slow Pulp is the gift that keeps on giving. They broke in heavy with an impressive debut in Moveys, arriving right when that fuzzy, melodic nineties alt-rock wave was making a serious dent alongside contemporaries like Momma and The Beths. With every release, the Chicago via Madison band has upped the ante, turning the momentum from Yard into a massive cartwheel forward on Melodie.
Where does that extra push come from? For the first time, guitarist Henry Stoehr stepped up to split songwriting down the middle instead of sticking solely to the board. On the flip side, vocalist Emily Massey stepped directly into the production booth. By distributing the weight evenly, the record stops feeling like isolated experiments stitched together and starts sounding like a unified front.
Stoehr’s pen makes an impact immediately on lead single “Better Man,” which explodes out of the gate with huge hooks and blistering honesty. It creates this fascinating dual-authorship dynamic: Stoehr wrote the song straight from his own heart rather than trying to guess Massey's perspective, but coming out of her mouth, the emotional whiplash sounds entirely lived-in. The song instantly throws itself into one of the best tracks I have heard this year.
Slow Pulp’s recognizable, chorus-drenched fuzz coats the record, sharpening the hallmarks of their sound. The title track is a relentless, fast-paced anthem, while “Red Car” and “Like Me” take that nostalgic bounce and melt it down into a dreamy haze.
Yet running beneath all that melodic sheen is a creeping sense of self-doubt, almost like the band is processing real imposter syndrome in real time. Characters across these songs are terrified of blowing it, whether literally in the self-sabotage spirals of “Better Man” or in the stalled momentum of “Red Car,” where the top is down but the ignition just won't catch.
The beauty of Melodie is how they confront that fraudulence and move right through it. Massey’s imagery shines on “Yellow and Green,” a song about aging and seasonal heartbreak that instantly joins the pantheon of great Halloween tracks. And then the whole thing wraps with “Slip Away,” an acoustic gut-punch written by Stoehr about alienating yourself in your early twenties, delivered by Massey with a cracking vocal take that sends the album out on a bittersweet fade.
Melodie is Slow Pulp fully cementing what makes them special while expanding the boundaries of what they can do together. Instead of chasing a complete left turn, they doubled down on their strengths, sharpened the edges, and found a richer emotional gear. It is the sound of a great band leveling up simply by trusting each other to shoulder the load.
NBA COMP: JAYSON TATUM & JAYLEN BROWN
For a long time, the outside chatter around Boston questioned whether two players with overlapping skill sets could coexist without getting in each other's way. The breakthrough came when neither had to carry the entire universe on their own shoulders. Brown stepped up to handle primary playmaking duties and defensive assignments, taking equal ownership of the floor, and the whole operation clicked into a championship gear because they stopped taking turns and started reading each other's minds.
That is Massey and Stoehr on Melodie. For two records, Massey carried the lyrical burden while Stoehr called the plays from behind the mixing board. Here, Stoehr steps onto the court as a primary scoring option with his own pen, while Massey takes the reins in the booth. It stops being a star with a great supporting cast and turns into a seamless two-way tandem where either one can take the last shot, and the music is better because neither has to do it alone
