New Monsters – Slow Runner

in new release April 20, 2016April 20, 2016

In three short weeks, the indie world will see the return of one of the east coast’s great creative duos. It’s been four-plus years since the world has seen a new album from Michael Flynn and Josh Kaler – known as Slow Runner. The duo cut a wide creative swatch with organic percussion, celebrating emotively driven pop and infusing it with electronic-fed geeky garage rock.

Time away has done nothing to dull these knives..

The elements of New Monsters immediately seem discordant and grandiose, and laid under the ever-present geek passion that drives the band. Flynn’s keys and Kaler’s multi-instrumentalist brilliance shine and then we are introduced to the auditory subject of their desire.. New Monsters features the remarkable Frances Cone. “This is why we can’t have nice things,” Flynn laments as Cone’s voice soars. The train is off the tracks and everything is right and wrong all at once. And just before we know it, the song is over and we’re left waiting and wanting more.

New Monsters is the band’s greatest effort to date. Written in South Carolina and in Nashville, the record encompasses the duo’s career to date while underscoring the fact that no one has apparently caught up to what these guys are doing or helped to fill the void their absence created.

In the last four years, life may have taken Slow Runner out of the public eye, but they have hardly slowed down. They’ve had songs on TV shows like Shameless, Grey’s Anatomy, and others across FOX, ABC, MTV, Showtime, and other networks. They’ve also had songs featured in worldwide ad campaigns for useful products like cars and soap and the internet. Twenty years ago this would have been called ‘selling out’; now that society has descended into a soulless corporate sarlacc pit void of all dignity and integrity, it’s actually an inspiring success story!

Editor’s Note: This will be one of the best records of 2016 but I also highly recommend checking out the duo’s award-winning 2011 effort Damage Points and Flynn’s 2014 album adventure, Face In the Cloud.