Sløtface

The Norwegian punk-pop outfit came together in Stavanger during 2012 once its future members connected through the area’s grassroots music community. Haley Shea and Tor-Arne Vikingstad were the first to link up, quickly beginning to co-write material before Lasse Lokøy and Halvard Skeie Wiencke completed the lineup on bass and drums. The quartet chose the name Slutface precisely because it felt confrontational and helped them stand out among other local acts. Their first release, a self-titled EP, appeared in 2013, yet it was the 2014 follow-up We’re Just OK that earned significant praise at home. Those initial recordings established the band’s core sound, which blended the spirit of early riot grrrl acts such as Bikini Kill with an unmistakably pop-oriented sensibility. Echoing the socially charged atmosphere of the early-’90s riot grrrl movement, the group placed feminist concerns at the heart of their songwriting, a focus that remained prominent across the two 2016 EPs Sponge State and Empire Records. Sponge State marked their first project to attract attention beyond Norway. After repeated issues with platform censorship, the band adopted the spelling Sløtface while retaining the original pronunciation. Their full-length debut Try Not to Freak Out surfaced in 2017, followed in 2020 by the sophomore album Sorry for the Late Reply, which the members characterized as embracing a “raw” and “minimalist” take on their usual sonic palette.