On Slow Burn, Ali Handal Makes Patience Sound Like a Creative Strategy
The title of Ali Handal’s new album carries the weight of experience. Released October 9, Slow Burn reflects a career that has unfolded across decades rather than according to the music industry’s preferred timetable, and its newest video makes that philosophy unexpectedly entertaining. “High Road” pairs Handal with Marc Maron inside a boxing ring, where the two musicians settle their differences with guitar solos.
It is a funny visual conceit, but the song underneath it is concerned with a recognizable and considerably less comic struggle. “High Road” grew from something Handal heard Maron say on his WTF podcast about trying to behave well in a relationship when anger makes the opposite response easier. Handal carried that idea into her songwriting, then eventually brought Maron himself into the studio to trade guitar solos on the recording.
The resulting video turns internal conflict into physical staging. Handal and Maron square off in the ring while her band plays nearby, creating an exaggerated version of the push and pull within the lyric’s premise. Rock & Blues Muse, which premiered the clip, described the exchange as “the ultimate guitar solo showdown” and highlighted its “raw, unvarnished spirit of blues-rock.”
For Slow Burn, that combination of humor, guitar muscle and personal reflection makes “High Road” a useful entry point. Handal’s record repeatedly considers what it means to keep developing long after an artist is supposedly expected to have settled into a fixed identity. At 57, she approaches experience as material rather than baggage, and the album’s central ideas revolve around persistence, change and the possibility of continued growth.
Photo credit: Ray Gutierrez
The title track connects that perspective to Handal’s personal life. Released on her 20th wedding anniversary, “Slow Burn” addresses both a long relationship and a musical career whose most satisfying period may be arriving later than expected. That overlap keeps the album from becoming a simple statement about perseverance. Its songs are rooted in the specific ways time changes relationships, ambitions and a musician’s understanding of her own strengths.
“Perennial” offers another version of that theme. Featuring violinist Scarlet Rivera, the song deals with the possibility of personal and social change at any age. Rivera’s presence carries added history for Handal, who grew up hearing Bob Dylan’s “Hurricane” with her father. Rivera’s violin on that recording became part of Handal’s early musical education, giving their eventual collaboration a personal dimension extending far beyond a guest credit.
Handal also uses Slow Burn to reconsider familiar rock material. Her take on Aerosmith’s “Walk This Way” slows the song into a blues-driven arrangement while preserving Joe Perry’s outro solo, a part Handal knew well from performing with the all-female Aerosmith tribute RagDolls. Her version of “Come Together” similarly shifts a canonical song toward close harmonies and a smaller-scale arrangement.
The album was produced by Handal with Seth Atkins Horan and mixed by Ross Hogarth, with much of the recording taking place at Mark Mothersbaugh’s Los Angeles studio. The production supports an artist whose guitar identity has become increasingly assured while leaving room for songwriting to remain the organizing principle.
That combination should translate naturally to Handal’s October 15 album release shows at The Baked Potato in Studio City. She will perform at 8 p.m. and 10 p.m., with both concerts being professionally recorded for a future live album. The timing makes the “High Road” video an effective bridge between Slow Burn as a studio statement and the next version of these songs taking shape onstage.
