Kill Screen: a stage or level found in arcade games that stop the player’s progress due to software bugs or integer overflows.

Possible Kill Screen: The best episode of The Shield. I might have said this before.

It’s been a long time coming, but I think it’s the time to put this little place in pause. This is not out of spite or anger, but it’s something that has to happen. Thing is: a few things  this year have been like buckets of cold water and whatever time I’ve got left in this silly third rock hurling through space is precious.

There’s a bunch of novels, 5 novellas and a ton of zines that need work instead of looking a bit half-assed work in progress thingamajigs, so with the recent passing of a good friend catalyzing this decision, I think I’ve had a good five year mission (hey, Star Trek reference!) in the reviewing game and maybe it’s time to get out of what seems to be a comfort zone.

Why quit now? It’s not an abandonment of music reviewing (yet) as I’ll still be reviewing in Spanish for La Pop Life and write a thing here or there in English, but maybe a little change of airs is necessary. The atmosphere can get a bit rarefied and if music genres decline and go away, why should music reviewers stick around forever? How much can you write about one subject until you find yourself repeating hyperbole, multisyllabic words and daft analogies?

The problem is repetition-saturation. I’d be rich if someone paid me for every time I typed “dreamy” or “intertwined” but those were the cards I was dealt and there’s only clubs and diamonds right now on the table. Ah, can’t complain much. It’s been a hoot and a holler and the sheer amount of talent I’ve managed to cover in this Shithole of a Website (TM) is tremendous and I honestly think I’ve barely scratched the surface of the music world.

With that said, I think I’ve said enough as a music reviewer. I do other types of writing and after this quinquennial plan seems to have run its course, it’s time to do something else. There are still many stories to be told and God knows I have a LOT of backcatalogue to post here (reviews, features, interviews, rants) so this is not the last post ever at Sloucher.

But the end is nigh.

So, taking a chapter from the book of Cats:For:Peru, I’m declaring this site on hiatus. We will continue to post the amazingly good studio diaries by Vast Robot Armies, we’ve got a couple of cool interviews coming up, long reads and there’s a few reviews of up and coming bands like Panoramas, Vast Robot Armies, The Eastern Sea, The Payroll Union, Mega Aquarians, Echodrone, Firesuite and several more that I’ve already said I’d do and they will be posted and published in every single social network I skulk around. Because they are bands I feel define my time in this site.

Lastly, although I’m writing the majority of articles here, I’ve met a lot of interesting people. I want to thank Jason Thomson, Claudia, Catriona, Ashley, Keith, Loic J. Tuckey, StrangeBundle, Chris Anderson, Rnst, Pete, Ryan, Matt, James the Ruffian, Joe, Glenn,  César, Alivón, Los Guarriors (Ara, Gonz, Ogo, Mariana)  for your work here in this last year. Big shout to all past contributors, especially Paul, Russell and Pippa, for their words and enthusiasm.

And that’s that.

Big hugs

Sam The Spam.

-30-

(yeah, a The Wire reference too…)