When talking about Margot & the Nuclear So & So’s latest (and fifth) studio album, vocalist/guitarist Richard Edwards described it as “It’s maybe an album about moving on while looking back, pillar of salt or no.” Over the last eight years the band has turned an impressive discography that’s never afraid to play it safe. While some efforts steered a bit too far away from the band’s defining sound, Margot’s fifth full length, Slingshot to Heaven, is a pleasant return to form for the Indianapolis based octet. Full of rich melodies, haunting harmonies, and balanced dynamic, the record enjoys a steadiness that has often wandered in and out of the band’s catalogue.
Slingshot to Heaven plays with the band’s mid-western vibes and polishes them up quite a bit. This can best be seen through the band’s more elementary approach to songwriting. Many of the tracks are much more straightforward than they have been in the past—check “Hello, San Francisco” & “Los Angeles.” Still, despite more forthright execution, arrangements are still deftly layered—i.e. plenty of slide guitars, pianos, synths, and more. Margot trades the abstract and experimental tendencies that infested their previous efforts for a greater sense of simplicity and accessibility.
That being said, the implementation of this simplicity enables Slingshot to utilize and explore a wider variety of themes and emotions. For example, tracks “Lazy” & “Getting’ Fat” show the sweeter, lighter and more playful side of this octet; “Long Legged Blonde Memphis” & “Bleary-eye-d-Blue” showcases the dive bar, seedy alternative sound that inhabited much of their last effort, Rot Gut, Domestic; and “Flying Saucer Blues” & “When Your Gone” spotlight the delicate somberness that harkens back to their debut lp, The Dust of Retreat.
Throughout this record, Margot often cut between these sounds; however, their underlying sense of melancholy ties this album together. Still Slingshot is a strange beast in that it’s a bit disjointed as well as a bit too uniform. The soft acoustic stylings are exquisite, but some tracks could benefit from cleaner breaks between. The straightforward approach doesn’t always serve to differentiate tracks immediately. While the layering and accompaniment in each song is more than enough to flesh out individual identity, it doesn’t always hit right away. A good example of this can be seen with tracks “Lazy” and “ZFlying Saucer Blues.” Both tracks are standouts; however, they play back to back, and “Lazy” uses the “flying saucer blues” line—which ultimately enables these tracks to blend as one whole.
Overall, Slingshot To Heaven is definitely a success. There’s maturity to the album that stems from the band’s comfortability with their style and ability. The record sounds like individuals who have grown with one another wrote it, and the end product definitely benefits as a result. Furthermore, there’s also a more naturalistic type of feeling—this is probably due to the band recording in the studio they built nearly a decade ago and releasing through their own imprint, Mariel Recording Company. While Slingshot To Heaven doesn’t defy genre boundaries or reshape tropes, it does exemplify a terrific mid-western alternative rock sound riddled with elements plucked from folk, indie rock, and emo. Though its thirteen tracks can blur into one another, the songs are strong enough to reduce this from a detriment to a minor inconvenience.
Article by Michael Ventimiglia
