Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
A resonance in Time is always something to look out for, to capture it takes proficiency and passion, and even to touch upon it is a calling that few can master without finding themselves being driven down the cul-de-sac of bitter recriminations and self-doubt; we can all use the abundant instruments to make the way clear, hopefully we can all follow a guide, but so few of us can say with certainty that we have dedicated ourselves to studying all the Maps available and are ready to find the way forward, or even be prepared to admit that we are lost and need help.
California’s Soft Science resonates the arc of positive belief in their new album, Maps, an album that shows all the contours and places of interest along the way, which admits perhaps that it rightly it doesn’t have all the information but is so much more understanding of the concept it is in because of it.
The shoe gazing beauty is untarnished, it is the admiration arguably of a genre that sits comfortably between the desire of a pop and the preciousness of the seductive; a sense of belonging with Time, of holding nothing back but doing it a way that the sea that surrounds us all, crashes gently into the walls of sand on which we sit, and barely dislodges a single grain.
A grain though will eventually give way, a moment of recognition will take place and the map will become a three-dimensional love affair, every hill, peak and trough will be gone through and loved in equal measure, it is a series of Maps that join to make a global sound, one that is identifiable to all who seek a lyrical truth that comes with the strength and purpose of the ideal stream of consciousness employed.
In songs such as Breaking, Diverging, Apart, Sooner and Enough, this smooth and enlightening album relishes the soul of the place in which it comes from and allows the listener to see beyond a boundary, one perhaps of their own making, but one that opens up new possibilities to explore. The musical cartography is not just a single view, but that spans every chart and record.
Soft Science’s Maps is out now
Ian D. Hall