A week ago Slow Season blew through Arcata on their way home from touring the west coast and played a last minute secret show at Dead Reckoning Tavern. If you’re not familiar with Slow Season I’ll give you the quick and dirty: they’re a four-piece from Visalia CA with loud guitars, driving rhythm, and raw melodic rock’n’roll in their hearts. In an era of resurgence for psych rock and heavy metal rife with Sabbath worship, Slow Season pounds out riffs more reminiscent of Led Zeppelin.
Their sound often invites the comparison but dismissing them as a Zeppelin tribute group ignores their talent, fresh sound, and musical might. They manage to capture the sound and feel of the late ‘60s/’70s without getting trapped in sounding old or nostalgic. If you don’t believe me scroll to the bottom and hit play on the embedded playlist. You’re gonna need something a lot better than the speaker on your phone to truly appreciate what you find.
Monday nights are notoriously slow around Arcata, and even quieter around my house, but I made an exception for something as special as seeing these heavy rockers in such an intimate space. I walked up an ill-lit street to get to Dead Reckoning and passed a group of people and a cloud of pungent smoke around the corner from the bar. I hazarded a guess as to who they were, and when they walked inside and picked up their instruments a few minutes later I knew that Slow Season had arrived.
They kicked off the night with the heavy strikes of “Sixty-Eight”, the opening track of their second LP and one of my favorite songs. The guitars were crisp and warm, the drums a barrage of sound, and I could feel the bass in my gut. They seared their way through the song and on the last note the drummer leaped off his stool, ran outside, and emptied his stomach on to the sidewalk. He staggered back in, sat down heavily, and dove right back into the music.
It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a drummer with so much fire in him. He beat the kit like it owed him money. Watching him play the drums was like watching animals fight in the wild – he embodied that same ferocity, that same passion, that same nearness to collapse. The band ripped through Rainmaker, one of the best songs on their most recent release Westing. The drummer was in a bad way, despite his attempts to power through it. The band played a new song from their forthcoming fourth album, and at the end the singer told the crowd they only had one more song. The drummer was very obviously sick, and despite his enthusiasm and valiant efforts there’s only so much violent drumming you can do when you’re physically ill. He walloped through two more songs before calling it a night. The crowd was understanding and we very vocally appreciated what we got. Slow Season’s set might have been cut short, but they left a room of nodding heads and melted faces in their wake.
The band stuck around after the show, drinking beers and hanging out with Dead Reckoning regulars. They were some of the friendliest folks I’ve met and were excited to talk about their music and the tour. A word about their music – they have three records out at present. Their self-titled debut is an excellent introduction to their sound and every track is solid. Westing, their most recent release on Riding Easy Records, is what caught my ear in the first place. Adam from Missing Link Records is famous for turning this town on to great music and when I walk into Dead Reckoning I invariably ask him what’s playing and walk home with a copy of it soon thereafter. Westing turned my head, and after he clued me in to Slow Season I wrote them down to find again later. I looked them up when I got home and came across Mountains first, their second album. From the very first chords, those two blasts of guitars repeated and filled out with the addition of the bass and drums, they had my attention. They kept it all the way through the end of the record, and I started it playing all over again when the final track came to a climactic close. Their music has just the right amount of heaviness and carries with it a sort of sonic familiarity that makes the songs instantly feel like you’ve known and loved them for years.
Slow Season have a new record coming out sometime this summer. Keep your eyes on these guys because if they pass through your town, be it for a headlining set on the weekend or a five song moment of magic on a Monday night, they are not to be missed.
Easton Connell 
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