Soft Will
Mom + Pop
2013
Rating: 7.5 menageries out of 10
I'll be honest, I've listened to Smith Westerns a number of times over the years but outside of a couple of songs, they've never really gotten my hackles up. But on this go around all of the sudden I'm listening more closely, and really liking what I'm hearing. Is it that "Soft Will" is their best effort, or has it just caught me at the right time? Who knows and I'm too lazy to go back and listen to their old records right now, what's important is this album is a slab of gorgeous pop music that sounds like it was unearthed from a time capsule buried twenty years ago. It opens with a bang with "3 AM Spiritual," a song that sounds destined for an Apple commercial, and only gets better from there. The record sounds very polished and hits a multitude of classic indie pop touchstones from the Stone Roses to the Ocean Blue to Suede and probably a bunch of others I'm too lazy to list. Going even farther back though, they might sound like George Harrison more than anything else. At least they picked the right Beatle to sound like.
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