Soften is a dream pop band from Cincinnati, led Brianna Kelly, who also makes self-described “liturgical drone pop” under her own name. Joined by Jon Delvaux, Andrew Aragon, and Corey Waddell, Soften allows Kelly to take the ethereal and strangely powerful nature of her solo work and morph it into big shoegaze-inspired pop songs.
The follow up to 2017’s Seen + Unseen, Soften have just released a new EP which sees them perfect this formula. Titled Soften Forever, the record is intended as a statement of solidarity, created after the band survived what they describe as “a year of bad breaks, break ups and turmoil writ large.”
‘Undo’ opens with a messy squall of feedback and battered drums, but soon settles into the current that directs the EP’s flow, a beguiling rhythm that makes even the harshest moments oddly accessible. The song confronts many of the album’s key themes immediately, haunted by a sense of fragmenting relationships and personal anguish. But nevertheless, it somehow manages to remain composed and empowered. “I wish I knew now what I knew back then,” Kelly sings, equal parts wistful and accepting, “and I wish I knew then what I know now.”
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The record’s centre-point in more ways than one, ‘Sun Comes Out’ is an emotive slow build, wrapped in a hazy murk, that explores the shadows that loom over us, that come creeping up even when everything seems okay.
when the sun comes out
when I stand on solid ground
make some meaning in the clouds
well it starts slipping like a rock
out from under my feet
crashing like a landslide into the sea
Puncturing the gauzy bubble, ‘Iridescent’ is more direct and immediate, rich and velvety shoegaze that nevertheless maintains the emotional core of the Soften Forever. “But I can’t, I can’t keep you for myself,” Kelly sings in what might be the most romantic break-up song of the year, “no I can’t, I can’t keep you at all.”
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A +7 minute epic, closer ‘Forever, Completely’ ends with the EP’s most nakedly earnest moment, beginning wrapped in smoky negative space before growing into first an affecting shoegaze-pop song and then great swells of indie rock noise. It’s a great illustration of the range Soften cover on Soften Forever, and testament to their ability to make music that is at once vaporous and powerfully physical.
Soften Forever is out now and you can get it from the Soften Bandcamp page.
