Routine Glow

It’s doubtful anyone truly understood the prophetic accuracy of Belle And Sebastian’s call to arms when they sang, “Nobody writes them like they used to, so it may as well be me.” But with the modern technology that’s come 15 years after the fact, it’s easier than ever for a solo artist like Wes Doyle to take the bull by the horns and put together the ’90s alt-rock record that he wanted to hear. And Routine Glow, Doyle’s latest LP under his Slow Loris moniker, encapsulates exactly that: a figurative journey through 1990s college radio that remains inextricably linked to the bored and lonely confines of his apartment.

As it currently stands, Slow Loris is unabashedly a bedroom-pop act. Routine Glow was recorded entirely in Doyle’s Madison apartment, with all of the production quality of a bedroom recording project—which is to say it (like a lot of stuff these days) sounds like Panda Bear. The album’s textures are glossy and cloaked by reverb, but the songs themselves are too thoroughly and familiarly of-the-’90s to be cast into the same pool of over-saturated pop. Doyle maintains terrific dialogue between his instruments, pairing lazy riffs with razor-sharp hooks to recreate the endearingly acute apathy of Pavement or Built To Spill.

Much of that malaise sounds genuine. “Window By The Stairs” is an especially lonely number that embodies the same themes of detachment and claustrophobia that pervade tracks like “Everybody Knows,” “People You Meet,” and “Late.” Even when Doyle writes about the ocean on “Flowers And Monsters,” he smells it from his bed.

But as they say: It’s best to write what you know. And at nearly 45 minutes long, Routine Glow is a thorough artifact, which presents its own complications. For all the airtight hooks and cozy rhythms, Doyle meanders through drawn-out guitar experiments on the aforementioned “Flowers And Monsters” and the back-to-back instrumental offering of “Astoria” and “EVRGRN ST.” Without any momentous punch, the record tends to lull under its own weight toward the end. But those are exactly the kinds of open-ended problems expected from someone who’s just recording around his apartment all day. Still, with the greater triumphs packed inside Routine Glow, it’s not hard to envision Slow Loris occupying a much bigger space in the near future.