INTRODUCING: Slope
Hardcore is arguably in the most accessible state that it has ever been, from the likes of TURNSTILE being featured on the likes of Jimmy Fallon’s late night show and amassing over a million monthly Spotify listeners, KNOCKED LOOSE featuring POPPY on their upcoming You Won’t Go Until You’re Supposed To album, and plenty of smaller record labels nurturing burgeoning talent; see Convulse Records and Flatspot Records for further excellence. There’s never been a better time to soak in the multitudes of frustrated and nuanced hardcore than right now. We’re in a glistening golden age of the genre, its resurgence has been in full swing for some years now but we currently sit atop its zenith. Making it all the more fertile for smaller bands to be appreciated, mimicking digging through random boxes at local record fairs, unknowingly stumbling upon an undiscovered gem. One of those gem’s is SLOPE.
Found in Duisburg, Germany, although they have two full-length albums and four EPs under their belts, there’s something to be discovered within their funk and hardcore fusion. Being touted as a sort of mini TURNSTILE, the German outfit’s new album Freak Dreams is full of groove oozing basslines and head nodding vocal rhythms. “We started to go to hardcore shows when we were fifteen, and we thought it would be cool to do something similar,” says Simon. “We actually started in Fabio’s parents basement,” he chuckles.
Fabio cements the date noting it was 2011 that they officially started out. It sounds like they had good taste too, when getting into the scene and discovering hardcore as Fabio recounts the first band they got into. “TERROR and TRAPPED UNDER ICE really got us hooked.”
There was something wanting to be added into SLOPE’s mix, more than just hardcore. During their days recording EPs, it was much more rooted in hardcore, “on Street Heat and Freak Dreams are much more diverse in the sound because we started listening to genres other than hardcore,” Simon tells us, before Fabio interjects.
“It was damn lucky for us that during that time our guitarist broke his leg,” which, frankly, doesn’t sound like much of a blessing at face value. He continues, “he was couch bound for six months and we did nothing but smoke weed and listen to music, so that was when we found all this new influence and regrew as a band.” Almost as if they healed alongside their guitarist’s leg. It’s sort of poetic if nothing else…
“Fabio already listened to a lot of hip-hop when he was young. I mean ‘younger’, you’re still young Fabio I swear,” Simon jokes. All Fabio has to laugh back is, “Bitch!” He takes the point from Simon, “I grew up with the old legends like BIGGIE, TUPAC, and NAS. I was really hooked on hip-hop as a kid, not much German stuff but like UK grime and American stuff. My parents gave me EMINEM’s Marshall Mathers LP, I think when I was either ten or eleven years old, and that was the first time I got in touch with hip-hop.” Alternative music and hip-hop’s relationship isn’t new by any means, but it’s not often that you hear a full blown synthesis of the two, there’s the stand out ones like LINKIN PARK and JAY-Z, RUN DMC and AEROSMITH – hell DIZZEE RASCAL even lent his flow to ARCTIC MONKEYS one time.
But how do they achieve that synthesis, not just mashing two genres together or butting heads where things don’t quite fit, they achieve it in a way that makes the genres hug each other. “We have no plans when writing a song or an album. We always have the roots of hardcore in our music. When we have a structure of a song, we might incorporate some harder stuff or some more funky stuff.”
Fabio follows Simon up, “we try to keep a record in balance, because there are some songs that lean on the heavier side of either style, so it’s not ten funk songs and one hardcore one.” Freak Dreams really puts SLOPE in the best position so far in their band career, they’ve released their best album yet and signed on to play multiple festivals this year. “We started writing this record just two months after we released Street Heat, which was difficult because we were still in the pandemic. It was fucked up because we had plans.” Fabio’s voice filled with disappointment as he expressed this, “we couldn’t even do a release show for the previous record, but it all worked out in the end, I guess.”
“After an album we are always scared that we cannot write another song which is as good as one of the songs from the latest album.” Simon seems to be accepting of that and at peace with the turbulence of making music. Fabio reassures saying, “we never have plans for writing music and just like when we sit together in a rehearsal room the most important thing is that we focus on music. We like it but I think if you like write music for yourself and not for anybody else, then the outcome will be like more honest and most of the time, better.”
There’s a confidence in that; that not everything is for all audiences, and that’s okay. You aren’t its creator and the only thing that belongs to you as a listener is the relationship that you have with it. SLOPE are at peace with the weirdly wonderful music they write and the response they get, but are just as content with it, just because they like it.
Freak Dreams is out now via Century Media Records.
Like SLOPE on Facebook.