Download: The Soft Pack – “Answer to Yourself”

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(from the self-titled LP The Soft Pack on Kemado Records)

How did the Soft Pack bottle the infamously raucous precision of their live performances so perfectly?  The Soft Pack’s guitars are bright and up front, as if directly plugged into the mixing board, and Dave’s drum beats ring as clear as someone’s head knocking against the Liberty Bell.   There have been so many fake psychedelic bands, lazy noise rock and boring CSNY wanna-be records lately—thank god The Soft Pack stares you down and gets you off your ass.

The appeal of songs such as “C’mon” and “Answer To Yourself” is that they are not sung by cloying children, not emo and sad and sensitive. Fuck that baby shit.  Don’t get me wrong, the lyrics are articulate in their detachment with what’s going on around them.  Every word evokes an image of the grimace and arched eyebrow that would accompany them if said to your face.  But what makes these songs different from most of the other rock albums recorded by four dudes is that they concern themselves with rocking the shit out of right now!

There are obvious reference points for their unadorned sound, such as The Feelies on songs like “More Or Less” and “The Tides of Time,” or The Modern Lovers on “Flammable” and “Parasites.”  The song “Mexico” almost recalls Elvis Presley, or the softer side of Lou Reed. Yet rather than getting bogged down with what came before, The Soft Pack is honest and straightforward, which is incredibly refreshing.   This album makes the most out of the present.  The future and the past are abstract and irrelevant.  These dudes are having fun.
  
-Eyad Karkoutly