Soon Premiere “Burning Wood” from Debut Album Vol. 1
[Click play above to hear “Burning Wood” from Soon’s debut, Vol. 1. Album out March 4 on Temple of Torturous.]
Chapel Hill, North Carolina-based four-piece Soon offer up their aptly-titled debut full-length, Vol. 1, on March 4 via Temple of Torturous. As 35 minutes/eight tracks, it is a substantial-enough long-player, but it covers a scope even broader than its runtime might lead one to believe, and while the group trace their lineage to more indie-minded outfits The Love Language, Bitter Resolve and Grohg, the explorations contained here, from the rolling groove of opener “We are on Your Side” to the drone ritual closer “Rise,” feel geared most of all toward establishing, developing and generally screwing around with a new sonic identity. That is to say, Vol. 1 is a varied collection of tracks that doesn’t feel hindered by genre one way or another, and a decent portion of its persona comes from that will to move beyond various sonic boundaries.
That Soon — the four-piece of guitarist/vocalists Stuart McLamb and Mark Connor, bassist/vocalist Robert Walsh and drummer/vocalist Thomas Simpson — do this while sounding natural in their songwriting and changes makes the debut all the more impressive. A couple plucked acoustic notes intro “We are on Your Side” before the full-toned electric guitar kicks in, and a shoegazing verse takes hold around a minute in to build tension before the chorus, which uses multiple singers and has a doom-pop anthem feel to it, tripping into late-’60s guitar soloing as if they hadn’t already melded enough styles together. After another verse and chorus, they end acoustic and the sub-three-minute “Burning Wood” takes chugging hold backed by keyboard and a driving riff that somehow still acts as a vocal showcase. The second cut is steadier and more stylistically settled, but “See You Soon” fleshes out a grungier side and makes it clear that Soon haven’t yet shown their full breadth. So it is that “Gold Soul” includes particularly impressive vocal harmonies and strings to add a post-Morricone vibe to its dense riffing and additional percussion behind its guitar solo in the second half, none of which sounds overly kitchen-sink or out of place.
No small feat to create a mix deep enough to accommodate, but Soon have a decidedly tossoff feel to nearly everything on Vol. 1, like they plugged in that day and that’s what happened to come out. In fact, that may be true, but as “Gold Soul” gives way to the more stripped down, snare-heavy “Glass Hours,” another side of their blend of psychedelic sludge, thick tones and melodic consciousness comes to the fore, partially reviving the likes of “Burning Wood” and “See You Soon,” but also given a different context through the subsequent “Mauveine,” which also features a string arrangement but is centered around melancholy acoustic strumming and a wistful vocal line. The underlying sense of space keeps it cohesive with its surroundings, but “Mauveine” is a conscious departure from a lot of what Vol. 1 aims toward, and that’s very clearly the idea. It also sets up the closing tracks, “Datura Stramonium” and “Rise,” which are the two longest inclusions and wildly different from each other. Harmonized vocals again tie “Datura Stramonium” to the rest, but there’s a howl and sparkle in the guitar that I can’t seem to separate in my mind from U2 from when they were (allegedly) good, though atop a flurry of tom runs they deliver both a scorching psychedelic wash of noise and a satisfyingly weighted finish, which lets “Rise” round out the album with a six-and-a-half-minute drone/chant assault, marked out by sporadic turns in the guitar and a SunnO)))-style backing for choral melody.
I won’t say the pairing doesn’t work, because it does, but it’s a challenging finish nonetheless, and this too is quite obviously intentional. In combination with its surroundings, “Rise” serves to point out the sort of dual nature of Soon‘s debut, which is that it has these complex aesthetic ideas that it portrays as though they were the simplest thing in the world. Well of course you’d go from the acoustic downer into weighted alt psych-pop into the drone metal finish! It’s almost too obvious! Meanwhile, the listener’s head is left spinning after the band has capped “Rise” with immersive low end and finished the record cold. It is an ambitious first offering preceded only by a couple digital demos, and it seems to so easily accomplish what it sets out to do that it’s deceptive the first couple times listening, you have to go back and make sure you heard what you just heard. Fortunately, they make those return trips worthwhile in the richness of the album as a whole.
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Tags: Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Soon, Soon Vol. 1, Temple of Torturous, Vol. 1
