Soft as an Anvil
By Tankboy in Arts & Entertainment on Feb 8, 2008 8:30PM
Remember Adorable? If you do you're probably old like us, so let's go for a slightly more culturally relevant (read: Sofia Coppola approved) touchstone and namedrop My Bloody Valentine. Hell, we could check any number of Britpoppers with huge guitar rigs.
If any of that interests you, or fills you with a sense of fond sentimentality, might we suggest you check out Soft's debut, Gone Faded. The group rips riffs from the Stone roses meets oasis (Jesus, how many more references can we fit in here?) songbook and the vocals are high, breathy, and tend to start near the end of singer John Reineck's range before lilting off into the stratosphere.
All of this could be a recipe for a failed nostalgia act if the group didn't have their shit so firmly nailed together. Come to think of it we should hate the band considering they have ska (negative 2 points) roots and were named by some dude from Maroon 5 (negative 12 points). Luckily they're from Brooklyn (plus 10 points (17 if they're from Williamsburg)) and write killer fucking tunes (plus 25 points ... winner!).
The standout track on the album is easily "Higher" with it's chiming waves of guitars and hooks that crash over and envelop everything around them. A song has to be pretty terrific to withstand the potential pitfall of backward vocal looping over the bridge, but Soft carries it off with panache.
MP3: Soft "Higher"
Soft plays The Empty Bottle Sunday February 10 at 9 p.m., 21+, and tickets are still available.
RELATED: If you can't wait until Sunday to get your shoegaze on, Airiel plays their first show of the year, with half a new line-up, at Darkroom tonight.
Image via the band's MySpace page.