Lines is the fourth album by Soft Science, it was recorded during the pandemic and mixed when all the band could get together to do it in one place. Soft Science are a 6-piece featuring Katie Haley, Ross and Matt Levine, Tony and Becky Cale and Hans Munz who are based in Northern California and have been in loads of other bands between them.
The album fades in with Low a hazy, gauzy, dreamy song with long synth tones that are eventually joined by the drums, as the wispy vocals add cadences to the wash of sound that wraps you in a cocoon. This has a long fade out to slowly sink into the ether with.
Grip grabs you by the ears and won't let go, the dreamy shoegaze guitars wrap around you brain, as you try to focus on the lyrics that are gripped by the fear of the last few years.
Deceiver is built around the bassline, as words and deceptions fly at you like the wall of reverb laden guitars trying to insist that you won't be fooled by all the lies.
Sadness is full of jangly guitars that help you to lose sight of what's important, so you end up in a slough of despond, as your life has turned to mush, as the world seems out of control. Still, you try to find ways to not let the sadness overwhelm you with a tune as pretty as this one is.
Kerosene is a lot lighter and nicer than the Big Black monument, although I'd love to hear a dream pop version of that song, this has electro guitar with a dreamy feel to it. The guitars soar like the flame from a Kerosene torch flaming up into the sky.
Stuck is a gauzy lockdown song for someone who is stuck unable to go anywhere or do anything and wondering what they will be allowed to do and when as the guitars fly off all over the place.
Hands is good spaced out frazzled at the edges psych dream pop for the 2020's fraught at the edges, flooded with guitars firing on all cylinders.
Zeros is a superlative slice of ethereal shoegazing that you may need some double Zero to go with. True is the most upfront pop song on the album, it sounds like it should get some good indie radio play, this is a catchy love song in the Lush meets Stereolab kind of groove.
Polar sounds like it's being played backwards in a Reversomundo style, only the vocals are even more hazy as this gets totally laid back.
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