Slow Dancing Society "Laterna Magica" – Igloo Magazine

“Slow Dancing Society, on the other hand, may be the most loveable of Hidden Shoals’ roster. Built around chiming, delayed guitars, Drew Sullivan´s music glows and radiates more wattage than most ambient. Sulllivan has a consistent, very personal address. His previous effort Under the Sodium Lights was one great big, dreamily seductive love letter. Lanterna Magica is an album of specific farewells, if the fact that half the ten tracks contain personal pronouns in their titles is any indication. It is light, almost Californian romance for “A Few Moments,” marred by the unfortunate idea of frankensteining a hermaphroditic spoken-word stanza at the very end. But that small flaw is easily outshone by magical moments like “Gardens and Graves” and “I’ll See You in Time,” wispy things that graze up against a kind of ambient folk. Unprepossessing, only waved at with effects, Sullivan’s Laterna Magica is far easier to embrace than the more challenging Mehr, but that doesn’t make it any less well-crafted. Although the label chose “I’ll Leave a Light On” as lead-in single, I would have gone with “A Slow Parade of Wind.” And even though it is an emotionally-based album, Sullivan takes time for a genuine think-piece with “There’s a Place for Us.” ”

–Igloo Magazine