ALBUM REVIEW: Feel It All Around – Soul Blind
In recent years, mainstream alternative music has been all about adding as many additional features as possible to your sound over focusing on the foundations of a rock band. New York’s SOUL BLIND are a band unafraid to be what they are at their core – crushing distorted guitars and bass, grooving hard-hitting drums, and spacious flowing vocals. Having released a trail of four EPs since 2018, the alternative rock outfit release their debut album Feel It All Around on November 11th to showcase the full range of their song-writing talents.
The sheer power behind some of the riffs is one of the strengths of this whole album. It often feels as though you are being punched by the instrumentation, largely accented by how adept the band are as a unit at encouraging space when necessary. This is notable from the off as opener Seventh Hell features brutally distorted guitars while remaining very open rhythmically to leave you helpless in moving along with the grooves when they cut in. Their control over the rhythm is conscious. Many of the tracks feel as though they could be played faster, but that would only serve to detract from the feel of the music that you are unreservedly sucked into. Any of those with weak necks listening to this album would be best served investing in a neck brace, as it’s difficult to avoid head-banging along for the full near-40 minutes of this record.
Lead single Stuck In A Loop speeds up the pace with driving rhythms and a luscious catchy chorus sat atop a dissonant guitar melody. An aura of DEFTONES’ Chino Moreno comes through in vocalist Cen’s undulating melodies, like oil on water above distortion that resonates in your bones. Another single in Tribe follows this, slowing back down to an almost lethargic meter which opens with a crunching bass line that is so dark it’s almost demonic. “You will suffer again” harks Cen in the chorus, only furthering the malevolent feel of what is certainly the heaviest track on the album.
Not without showing their softer side, SOUL BLIND follow this with Everyday Evil, a dominant slower track, but compared to the power of what has preceded it, softer nonetheless. Shoegaze verses with reverb-shrouded guitars are accompanied by driving choruses and ambient lead guitars, and throughout it all drummer Steve Hurley powers on beating the drums with a vengeance. System (Failing) features quite an uplifting chorus with lyrics about leaving a no longer healthy relationship, featuring the lyrics “Pull yourself away, when the pressure leaves you strayed” signalling a slight shift in the direction of the album for the latter half being somewhat more positive in direction.
All In Time feels like the pinnacle of this, like a resolution to some of the darker previous moments in the album. With a chorus of “The weight is gone, it’s cast aside / The feeling’s strong, you’ll be just fine” and ending with the repeated line of “it’s over now”, it is a song with a great deal of hope both lyrically and harmonically. It also features some of the most impassioned drums of the album with fast-paced fills augmenting the regular flow of half-time grooves we have become accustomed to. Harmonically, they have an ability like BASEMENT to include chord changes that are unexpected, to a degree jarring, but ever appropriate. Album ender and title track Feel It All Around has this feeling in abundance, as the first time you hear the chords in the intro you are thrown slightly, but as it repeats and the full band joins in they are proven right with their decision.
With Feel It All Around, SOUL BLIND have created a sonic palette from the dark and aggressive to the hopeful and pensive. It is an album without bells and whistles, just a pure reflection of the song-writing, and is stronger for that fact. The lethargic grooves are as infectious as they are spacious, and synonymously their own with an ability to hold back and serve each song as it needs. SOUL BLIND have produced a debut album elevated from previous releases, and it requires your attention.
Rating: 8/10
Feel It All Around is set for release on November 11th via Other People Records.
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