An orange Jersey sunset and a trafficky trip over the Driscoll Bridge later, I arrived at Starland Ballroom as mentally prepared as I was going to get to pay $10 to park in the only lot within a half-mile radius. It was almost enough, but my cause was just. Norway’s Slomosa on their first US tour, supporting Alkaline Trio of all bands. Not the oddest pairing ever, but still a head scratcher from where I sit. For me at least it would be an early night. Half-hour set, so, prorated down, it was three bucks a minute for me to park at Starland Ballroom.

Counterintuitive lineups and parking lot extortion be damned; I knew I wanted to see Slomosa’s first US incursion badly enough to overcome even the most minor inconvenience. Getting to watch the band for the first time at this past summer’s Freak Valley Festival in Germany (review here), and reveling in their newly-issued second LP, Tundra Rock (review here), well, I woke up in Connecticut, marched in a parade this morning and spent the early afternoon having my innards tossed around on rides at a fair three hours north of here in Connecticut. I wanted to be here badly enough to touch I-95 on a Saturday afternoon. I could go on.

Thankfully, Slomosa did that very thing a short while after I sat my ass on the photo-pit side of the crowd barrier. Officially this was still before the actual show started, and the room was packed. It would only be more so after Slomosa played, and however familiar people were with them when they went on, by the time they were done, hands were in the air. Before they finished, rounding out with “Horses,” as they will, Benjamin Berdous shouted out a couple against the barrier who’d come down from Massachusetts to see them. That beats Connecticut. I was up in the back after taking pictures and looked to the front and, presumably, they were the ones who knew to wear masks for “Horses.”

Berdous, bassist/vocalist Marie Moe, guitarist Tor Erik Bye and drummer Jard Hole played six songs in what felt like a short set, one half of one hour. Setting out with “Afghansk Rev,” they featured “Rice” and “Monomann” from Tundra Rock and interspliced cuts from the 2020 self-titled debut (review here) that set in motion their ascendancy to the forefront of the heavy underground. As noted, “Horses” finished, but earlier on it was “Estonia” and “In My Mind’s Desert” in succession. I’ll be honest, I was a bit surprised to get neither “Cabin Fever” nor “Battling Guns,” two singles released from Tundra Rock, two weeks old at the most in terms of release date, but three and three felt like a fair split. If they only played brand new stuff, those people who drove four-plus hours south might have been bummed out. Slomosa are nothing if not crowdpleasers, if by their own dictates.

They continue to resonate potential. Seeing them play to a mostly full room that caps at 2,500 — there weren’t that many people there, but it was probably over 1,000 — not only did they win over an audience in a span of those six songs, but they did it across genre lines and on their first trip to the country. These are not minor accomplishments to consider, and if the Jersey show is at all a bellwether for how the rest of the tour has gone — they’re more than halfway through — then it’s probably been worth the trip, but what’s really incredible about it is they don’t at all seem to have peaked in craft, performance or presence on stage. Whatever they’ve done to this point, they’re still growing as a band.

It’s hard not to be excited about a relatively young band bringing it at the level they are. They’re not blindingly original in their approach, but they’re obviously doing the thing right, and the 10-year-old next to me rocking out while they played who was there to see Alkaline Trio with his dad? He neither knows nor cares that Slomosa are taking cues from a Queens of the Stone Age record that came out some untold number of years before he was born. The songs were good and people were into it. This is the rock and roll ideal, and on a given night on this tour, it doesn’t matter if Slomosa are one of the brightest hopes for the next generation of heavy rockers, adding to a genre with a refreshing perspective and material that stands on its own when set against the classics that inspired it.

Whatever their future does or doesn’t hold, however far they can push the thing and capture the enduring attention of an always-fickle listenership, Slomosa are crucial right now, and Tundra Rock sets a high standard for others in the tail end of this year. Their first US tour — I sincerely doubt it will be their last, but you never know — felt like an event to witness, however brief the actual set may have been, and I was lucky to have been there for this stop on it. They seemed to genuinely enjoy being on stage, introducing themselves to the crowd, and the manner in which they did made that joy infectious. It felt right to smile while they played, and regardless of style, potential or anything else, that makes Slomosa a special band. See them if you can, and thanks for reading.

Tags: Bergen, MNRK Heavy, Norway, Slomosa, Slomosa Tundra Rock, Stickman Records, Tundra Rock

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 24th, 2024 at 8:15 am and is filed under Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.