With a name clearly inspired by The Goonies, after a seventeen-year silence, the risk that this comeback by the Slick Shoes could deliver a reshuffle flavored with "how we were" might have seemed to most as something decidedly concrete.

And nostalgia, if you listen closely, permeates all 33 minutes of this "Rotation & Frequency," released under Tooth & Nail.
Atmospheres from a past life that, however, do not weigh down the flow of the tracks, all fast, all melodic, and highly technical, like every batch of the Californian combo's catalog.

The return of Jackson Mould on guitar, combined with the gallops of a Joe Nixon never under strain, takes the Slick Shoes to the 'next level': resuming a conversation interrupted almost two decades ago, through careful selection of melodic solutions, the compositions acquire an ethereal, adoring quality, elevating some of the album's most refined passages to a sort of "gospel skate punk," a series of decidedly unique vibrations that work like no other album of the genre released in at least the last five years, as seen in "Always Have (Enough is More)," "Moments," and "2008."

Elsewhere in the album ("Carry This," "Held By Hope," "I Forget The Words"), one delves into hardcore territories between breakdowns and tight bass lines, perspectives that complete the overview of the explosive and unexpectedly ruthless return of a band that seemed to have faded away forever.

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