Dustin's Best of 2017, #3: Sløtface - 'Try Not to Freak Out'

In case you didn't know, there's a lot of music on Bandcamp. Probably way too much. But I appreciate the efforts that the staff there makes to highlight new(ish) acts and/or albums by putting up regular features, interviews, and album streams on their homepage. Sløtface is one such band that got a homepage story. And I'll be honest: I only clicked on the story because of their name. It's an intriguing one, to say the least (their old demos spell the band's name as "Slutface" which is also how the band pronounces their current spelling). But their name isn't why I kept listening, it turns out I really loved the music.

The energy on Try Not to Freak Out is huge, and insanely catchy. There are a million and one pop culture references (one of my favorite things), including Patti Smith, Beyonce, Queen, Nancy Drew., James Bond, and, if I'm not mistaken, Ryan Adams, and choruses that got stuck in my head for days on end. Honestly, as far as ranking my favorites of 2017 go, this album and Charly Bliss' Guppy are nearly interchangeable as I'd often listen to them on shuffle together.

What really made this album stick out to me is the semi-title track "Try." In addition to the recurring theme of finding closure, a lot of my favorite albums this year, particularly ones that came out in August or later, are ones that struck a chord with me while my anxieties and self-doubts were at an all-time high. And, as anxious people do, I was constantly worried that I was annoying those closest to me with every freak out that I had, even the small ones. So to hear a song with the chorus "I promise not to freak out this week / I just go crazy when I'm gone" while I was in the middle of, well, freaking out over whether or not I was driving my friends away, it (kind of) helped me gain some perspective. Try Not to Freak Out is exactly the type of album that I needed in 2017.

You can stream or buy Try Not to Freak Out below.

Recommended tracks: "Magazine," "Pitted," "Sun Bleached," "Pools," "Try," "Backyard"

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