PREMIERE! Slipping - “Reptilian”
Slipping slipped out of the gate in 2022 with a five-song self-titled EP that introduced the trio as a slowcore/emo hybrid whose even heaviest hitters belied a breeziness. It was the kind of EP that begged for a full-length follow-up. That album, Pulling at the Thread, is finally on the cusp of release, with one single, the languorous “Away,” as evidence of its colossal heft. The record’s out next Friday on Den Tapes, but before that, here’s one more sneak peek via the comparatively fleet-footed ‘Reptilian.”
“It came about at roughly the midway point in writing our album,” says lead vocalist and guitarist Joel Parmer. “Writing had started to hit a stride for us as a band and this song was an exercise in a sort of deliberate restraint,” says Parmer. “We wanted to make something simple yet meaningful, which is always challenging.”
Unlike the glacial blossoming of “Away,” “Reptilian” plays it straight; it’s two identical verses, two identical chorus, and a coda. But don’t take that simplicity for complacence. Those mirrored parts are part of an oblique, compact examination of how what seems like change can often just be a return to the status quo. As Gabby Hoffman’s bass serpentines with the guitar chords and Kai Brockovich’s drums pound, Parmer repeats the conceit (“Got caught up in the same cycle/again and again,”) before finally breaking the cycle after just two repetitions, the reptile shedding its skin. “I won’t say we played it to death,” he affirms, “but we definitely put our reps in writing this one.”