Archangel of the Wasteland
Arch Street Tavern
Hartford
September 3, 2026
What the hell is “slow core”?
I’d checked Archangel of the Wasteland’s Instagram page between songs, and saw the band’s description: “slow core, country, grunge, idk.”.I’m familiar with country, grunge and idk, but I admit slow core was a new one for me.
Archangel was performing at Arch Street Tavern as one of three bands making a two-day stand here in Hartford. The band is made up of August Packard on vocals/guitar, Anna Sherwood-Ross on vocals/guitar (she goes by Sherwood), Jackson Ferrari-Ibelle on bass, and Owen Pence on percussion. The members hail from across the nation, as far away as Albuquerque and as close as Providence, but they all call New York City home now.
Jackson told me a little about the history of the band. (“You want to talk to the bass player?” he asked, genuinely surprised, which reminds me of one of my favorite scenes of all time.) Packard and Sherwood have been friends since childhood and have been playing together for the last four or five years; Ferrari-Ibelle and Pence joined about three years ago to round out the band.
So I asked him: what is slow core?
“Man I don’t know,” he said with a laugh. “It’s something we made up because people keep asking us what our music sounds like.”
I get why that’s a frustrating question to answer over and over, but it’s an understandable one. The influences of country music on Archangel are unmistakable, and country music has never had a reputation for being fast and upbeat. Archangel goes beyond the melancholy of country and dives straight into the deep end of sadness.
I’ve written this before, but sadness is a wonderful emotion. Happiness feels good, but sadness is revelatory. There are so many other thoughts and emotions that bubble up when we not only face regret, loss and sorrow, but embrace them as perhaps the most direct pathway into our inner selves.
Take an experience that many of us have had: getting way too drunk. Who among us hasn’t been so drunk that they fell over while checking tire pressure at 2 a.m.? It’s funny, because alcohol is so strongly associated with parties, fun and being social, even though we’re often getting smashed in the solitude of our own homes and minds.
Archangel captured that dichotomy with “Wasted #2”– yes, their second song about being too drunk:
She said I was wasted/ When I told her I felt that way
As we sat in the basement/ of a bar my parents drank
I never meant it/ Never meant a single thing
That I'd said to her that day.
Could she say that?/'Cause I never fucking lied.
Does she not know that?/How can she look me in the eyes
And tell me that all that I'd said with her hand in mine/Across the table with beer in our eyes wasn't true?
One of the most important lessons to learn as an adult is that truth is meaningless. I don’t mean that in a nihilistic way. But just because something is true doesn’t make it right to say or act on it. In fact, being “right” falls into this category too. The fastest way to end up alone and miserable is to be right all the time.
That’s because relationships aren’t based on the verifiable. They’re based on the delicate emotional interplay between human beings. That’s at the heart of "Wasted #2," a man trying to explain why his truth shouldn’t hurt. Good luck with that one.
So what the hell is slow core? It’s the fusion of country and grunge, a down-tuning of the down-tuned, a mirror that shows us the emotions that can actually teach us something. Archangel of the Wasteland should be proud for making it up.
NEXT
Archangel of the Wasteland will perform again at Arch Street Tavern Friday, Sept. 4 at 8 p.m..
Jamil goes to Parkville Market to celebrate Brazilian culture.
