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Soft Science – Lines (2023)
Review:
A regional supergroup of sorts whose collective résumés include upwards of a dozen early-millennium indie groups, California's Soft Science inhabited a lane at the intersection of driving indie rock, affectionate noise pop, and shimmery shoegaze over the course of their first three albums during the 2010s. Their fourth LP and Shelflife debut, Lines, was recorded with the six-piece lineup of Katie Haley (Holiday Flyer, the California Oranges), brothers Ross and Matt Levine (Welt, the California Oranges), partners Becky and Tony Cale (English Singles, Arts & Leisure), and electronic music specialist Hans Munz (aka AngelZero). Though personnel is only slightly tweaked from their previous album, Maps (Becky Cale takes over on bass), Lines represents a further progression in sound into denser, deeper pools of harmonic shimmer constructed with everything from 12-string guitars and synthesizers to a newfound stress on harmony vocals. While the album's sound design may place the band more squarely under the shoegaze banner, it's important to add that Soft Science keep the tempos high, the melodies of gauzy-voiced lead singer Katie Haley honeyed, and grooves locked in place (for the most part) throughout. In fact, there's nary a cigarette lighter ballad in the bunch after the hazy, prelude-like opener, "Low." That track eases listeners in with a cyclical organ progression, tapped cymbal bell, and wind-like sound effects before Haley's spacy, multi-tracked vocals enter ("You fly high…") and guide the song into lusher atmospheres replete with choral vocals, meandering electric guitar, and a steady bass drum that eventually switches to double time. The next track, "Grip," lets loose from the get-go with a fuzzy guitar riff, gray-hued post-punk timbres, driving, dance-encouraging bass and drums, and plenty of shimmer, setting the tone for the rest of the album. Along the way, galloping highlight "Sadness" is a giddy, bittersweet lovers' quarrel that seeks solutions ("Grab what we can/And try to hold on"), "Stuck" nearly submerges vocals in swirling echo while keeping the rock-club floor bouncing, and "True" is the closest to a straight-up dream pop entry with its romantic, multi-member vocal harmonies and yearning, melodic lead guitar lines. Often immersive and just plain catchy, Lines is the band's most consistent set yet. — by Marcy Donelson at allmusic
Track List:
01 - Low
02 - Grip
03 - Deceiver
04 - Sadness
05 - Kerosene
06 - Stuck
07 - Hands
08 - Zeros
09 - True
10 - Polar
Media Report:
Genre: dream-pop, shoegaze
Country: Sacramento, California, USA
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits
Compression mode: Lossless
Writing library: libFLAC 1.2.1 (UTC 2007-09-17)
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