Make It Worse

Lancaster, Pennsylvania’s Slimfit serve up a grab-bag of authentic American roots music with Make It Worse. From the country folk of opener “Midnight Blues”, with its mournful strings and “I’m burning inside for you” refrain, to the classic rock riffs of “Wrong is Wrong” and “Easy To Talk To,” it’s clear this quintet is quite comfortable mixing things up. The band can convincingly carry bluegrass, with the pedal steel, fiddle, high harmonies and devil may care chorus (“I don’t know if I’ll ever get it right / I ain’t gonna think about that tonight”) of the title track, but can also make you believe the bleeding heart harmonica and almost shrugged-off shuffle of “That’s Me” or the straight ahead country rock of “Pony Up”. Even among all these great tracks, Slimfit has highlights.”Fight ‘Til You Die” is surely a live favorite that wouldn’t sound out of place on a Pogues collection and “Never Learn” is all the best elements of that thing called alt-country, wrapped up in one gorgeously orchestrated, irresistibly catchy tune. Of course, the same thing could be said about any one of the tracks on Make It Worse.