The Slants’ final full-length album, aptly titled The Band Plays On, is a fourteen-track collection of the band’s melodic, highly danceable synth-pop, which will be released digitally and on vinyl October 20th.
This year has been a very busy year for The Slants. While it may seem they’ve been dormant, with their last release being 2019’s self-titled EP, if you know Jiang and Tam, dormant is not a word they know. Earlier this year they debuted their rock opera, Slanted: An American Rock Opera, via the New Works Collective program at the Opera Theatre of Saint Louis.
The story of The Slants’ Supreme Court battle hit the theater and the rock opera was presented alongside two other groundbreaking operas: Cook Shack and Madison Lodge. These stories whisked audiences from 1920s Harlem to the modern-day Supreme Court, and from the exuberance of drag ball culture to the empowerment of a young female inventor. The world premiere for Slanted: An American Rock Opera took place March 16th-18th at Catherine B. Berges Theatre at the Center of Creative Arts in St. Louis.
Discussing the record and all the guests on The Band Plays On, Tam says the record was born out of the pandemic, and due to the pandemic, and not wanting to put another version of the band together, invited friends to guest on the album. The result is a record that redefines what The Slants are, as well as what constitutes a band.
Today Glide is excited to premiere the standout tune “Family,” which finds the band leaning into a dark-wave-meets-post-punk dance sound. The features vocalist Aron Moxley as well as nearly all former members of The Slants, and together they create a sound that feels pumped up and energetic. The song also carries a sound that feels like a throwback to the early aughts when groups like The Killers, Interpol and the Strokes were taking over the world, which makes sense considering that the band originated sometime during this era.
Different band members offer their reflections on the tune:
This track felt like vintage The Slants, so we wanted to honor that vibe in the final production by keeping the sounds familiar. One of the biggest upgrades from demo to master was the energy the live drums added to the track. And the vocals, of course. To me, the lyrics feel like a bittersweet reflection on creative partnerships, but the energy of the track implies that “the show must go on.” It’s an interesting variation of the concept of “The Band Plays On.” – Bao Vo
I was binging the Sopranos for the first time when I wrote Family and I really wanted to explore the volatility of a self-proclaimed family in the context of a band. The bond from creating, playing and touring together is very deep, and yet it’s very easy for relationships to fracture amongst band members to the point where friendships end permanently. Hopefully tho, no one is getting whacked over a music partnership. – Joe X. Jiang
Our band has been through many ups and downs over the years, including times where we thought it was an undefeatable brotherhood forged by the fires of touring as well as times at each others’ throats. In the end, that’s just like a real family, isn’t it? – Simon Tam
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