Duster, Liam McCay & sign crushes motorist

By Lucca Swain

Slowcore: what is it? As defined by Wikipedia, slowcore is a genre of music characterized by, “subdued tempos, somber vocals, and typically minimalist instrumentation,” which in essence means that it’s sad, stripped-back, and, well, slow. Though with characteristics that broad, you could probably pigeonhole a dozen different genres into being some variant or another of slowcore. And in theory, it sounds absolutely banal, like the stuff that only internet-addicted music forum goblins would enjoy, but because of just how vague the stylistic specifications are, slowcore is actually a difficult genre to pinpoint both sound and aesthetic-wise. The genre sees its roots in the late 80’s and very early 90’s, when bands like Codeine and Low cemented the outline of what slowcore is with records like Frigid Stars (1991) and I Could Live in Hope (1994): desolate soundscapes, minimalist riffs, intentionally messy playing, and lyrics that were more often than not totally pessimistic and down-in-the-dumps. 

At its naissance, slowcore was more-or-less just an incredibly depressing offshoot of indie rock, but as time progressed, it began to borrow stylistically more and more from genres such dream-pop, shoegaze, and even alt-country, even culminating in a few significant critical and commercial successes (ever heard “Fade Into You”?). Yet year after year, slowcore found itself scattering further and further from its slacker rock roots, and at some point in the early to mid-2000’s, it petered out as a popular style. Maybe it got oversaturated or was past it’s time, or maybe it just got too hard to define what slowcore even was anymore besides “sad music”, but even when people stopped making music that could be labeled primarily as “slowcore,” the genre’s influence was and is still everywhere, from Alex G to Yo La Tengo to even some of the music of Sufjan Stevens.

 Fast-forward to the modern day; the social-media-addicted youth have a newfound obsession with the music of the past. Nirvana, Smashing Pumpkins, The Cure and more, bands who were acclaimed and successful in their era and are just now finding new ground with zoomers. But then, there is Duster, and 1998’s Stratosphere. Stratosphere is like the platonic ideal of slowcore: lumbering tempos, the absolute most minimalist guitar, bass and drum playing possible, a singer who can barely find the courage to even murmur out his words, and it all has the recording quality of a band stuffed inside a closet. But this is slowcore, so of course I can’t neglect to mention just how deeply dejected Stratosphere is as a record. It’s incredibly cold and atmospheric, and the extreme nakedness of the sound only disguises how effective this music is at getting into your head and under your skin; there’s a real empty sort of sadness tucked away within these songs, a proverbial hollowness as stark and as inexplicably beautiful as the blue void taking up most of the album cover. And that’s also probably why Stratosphere has had such a lasting impact even after being released in obscurity back in 1998, why Duster managed to develop a cult following in online music spaces, and why they’re seeing such a massive resurgence on TikTok now; their music is bare and lo-fi like nothing else, stripped down to the raw, ugly feelings at the center of the song while still managing to sound lovely on the ears. That’s bound to resonate emotionally with a generation who’s only now coming into contact with the feelings so prominent on Stratosphere, and why, of all the bands to be plucked from RateYourMusic purgatory and placed center stage for all of TikTok to see, it was this unassuming little band who had up to this point only released four albums in 25 years.

And then, there is sign crushes motorist. sign crushes motorist (yes, the name is stylized in all lowercase) is one of not two, not three, not five, but THIRTEEN projects spearheaded by nineteen-year-old Irish slowcore artist Liam McCay, who gained prominence in the wake of the popularity explosion of slowcore on TikTok with his 2022 record i’ll be okay. What is the relationship between Liam McCay and Duster, you might ask? In all honesty, it’s because i’ll be okay, along with the majority of McCay’s music, is a shameless ripoff of Duster. Which is not an issue in and of itself; Duster’s sound is, quite frankly, basic as all hell; it’d be pretty easy to accidentally make a Duster-sounding song by just playing a few mopey-sounding chords and putting a lo-fi filter over it…which is exactly what McCay does. But the issue comes when you actually listen to i’ll be okay, and realize that it’s not very good. 

McCay’s greatest flaw is his fundamental misunderstanding of both Duster and slowcore, thinking that if you make every single song sound the same, remove all the dynamics and emotional contrast, and put some vaguely incel-ish “I miss her” lyrics over it, it’ll make the music sad. In reality, what sign crushes motorist ends up with is a bunch of songs that sound identical. The riffs are boring as shit, the lyrics suck, the vocals come off like parody, and the shoddy mixing ends up flattening everything into a fine audial pancake, as opposed to making it lo-fi. The songs have a tendency to drone, which is ironic considering that Duster actually had dynamics. They were not a one note band. They could be bleak, sure, but they could also rock – there are a number of Duster songs that are straight-up noise rock bangers, as well as ones that are shockingly upbeat. It’s of course unfair to compare one artist to another this heavily, but even on its own merits, i’ll be okay is still unbearably tedious. And that’s not even mentioning the album’s horrible cover of  Katy Perry’s “Last Friday Night.” Or how the other sign crushes motorist album Hurting, as well much of McCay’s other music, sounds nearly indistinguishable from everything on i’ll be okay. 

I do not think that sign crushes motorist is popular because it’s good, or because there’s anything of value or substance in McCay’s writing or riffs or mopey sentiment. Liam McCay has probably gotten successful because his music sounds identical to Duster’s, and because people have pinned Duster down to just being a sad “vibes” sort of band. Look at a song like the atrocious “Manifesto,” which sees McCay manifesting his inner Will Toledo and giving his absolute worst pity-party spoken word speech over nothing but a pulsating synth: “I will end up sad and alone, and the only person to blame will be me,” he moans, “I love you and I’m sorry for everything.” It’s almost guilt-tripping in a way, the kind of thing you would say to make someone else feel bad and not because you’re actually sorry. But it does register as “sad” and not toxic on the surface level, and for social media, that’s good enough. It’s wonderful that Duster blew up after 25 years, but tragic that it led to the creation of this low-effort depression-fetishizing nonsense; I pray every day that his 15 minutes of fame ends ASAP.