softscars

DECENT TO STRONG 7

Softscars sees yeule heading in a new sonic direction by incorporating shoegaze into their signature glitch pop style. It isn't a genre amalgamation that has yet to be done before (i.e. Sweet Trip), but I find yeule's take on it fresh and intriguing even though it may not always be successful. I've found myself gravitating towards the noisier interpretations of this sound, the explosive opener "x w x" for example, really captivated me with the blaring guitar passages and yeule's well-delivered screams. "dazies" is another song that explored a heavily distorted, almost grungy sound, the guitars on this song sincerely impressed me and the tempo slowdown on the second chorus was is undisputably my favourite musical moment in the album.

A key aspect of this album that I think could be improved upon are the melodies. I found some of them a bit too nondescript, not for the lack of interesting ideas, but moreso lack of progression and structure. They seem to be more concerned with contributing to the overall vibe to the album than being great on their own, in a vacuum. You can argue that that's the point of the genre of dream pop/shoegaze, but personally I've always favoured music that's more attention grabbing.

Despite not being entirely my cup of tea, however, I can still very much appreciate it for mostly succeeding in what the album is aiming for, and I would like to see yeule build upon this new direction they're taken even further.

favs: x w x, dazies, sulky baby, software update
least fav: ghosts