Soft Kill : " Heresy"

I am beginning to care less and less about some of the so -called post-punk revival bands. Or maybe I am on the verge of beginning to careless.  If some put out some legitimate tasty darkness, I might get a little more invested. We are five or more years into this wave of it so bands are beginning to make the same album all over again. It is better than your average indie rock fare and I want some one to  get it right and engage me , which brings me to the new one from the Portland band Soft Kill. The first two have a Joy Divisionish indie rock feel , the vocals are sung more than Ian Curtis.  On "Hit the Floor" things take a turn for the darker and a more Cure like ambiance comes in though some of the guitar melodies that are woven around the pulsing drums and bass


There is a little Jesus and the Mary Chain influence to shake things up in "Selfish Love". The vocals drop into a more hushed baritone and the song isn't driving all the way with constant tension. "Current" backs off and lets the guitar melody ring out in a manner more like the Cure's more punk rock early days. Then things return back to a darker place for the title track. The vocals are breathier but in more of Jesus and Mary Chain than Joy Division. The guitar parts are well layered. This album generally sounds good. The mix puts everything in the right place with needed amount of emptiness to give the hollow post- punk coldness.


Overall this album might not be re-inventing the post punk wheel, but they do offer up some well crafted sounds. It hits more than it misses, but like I said and maybe I'm in the minority but with any genre I want to hear something different that twenty other bands are doing. When that is the case it just makes more sense to go listen to who ever did it first because they more than likely did it best, since the idea was still fresh at that point. I'll give this album a 7.5 , it redeems itself in the later half despite ,not a bad start just one that really doesn't stand out and have much dynamic range between the first two songs. This album is being released on 12" lp via No Sun Recordings