Soeza
Why Do You Do?
Gringo
Side projects can be wonderful things sometimes. Chris Cole, a mult-instrumentalist for the great UK post-rock band Movietone, initially drew me to Soeza. My unending desire to fill the musical six degrees of separation lineage of my favorite bands paid off with an excellent album that would have definitely slipped under my radar otherwise. Why Do You Do? is very cinematic post-hardcore; it feels like an album made by people whose knowledge of music transcends the usual influences of the genre. Sure, there’s the requisite breakdowns and angularity, but there’s also suppleness to the musical flow, as well.
On “Brackish Water,” the band cycles through a commanding rhythm section, with heavy bass and tribal percussion playing off against a rather hesitant guitar line and barely audible vocals. The follow-up, “Jack Jones,” sneaks in some pastoral melodies, while “Downscale” feels like a lightning-imbued Movietone or a more avant-garde version of The Sundays. The most interesting musical moment on the album comes on “Make It,” when the rock pauses for roughly ten seconds of the sound of rain gently falling against a windowpane. This sort of juxtaposition could be misconstrued as pretension, but Soeza keeps the whole album playful (check out the melodica and “bah bahs” on “They Glow at Night”). More important, though every twist and turn on this album might have been calculated and meticulously plotted out ahead of time, the music seems to flow organically. It’s definitely not what I expected a Chris Cole side project to sound like, but if he wants to spend the excruciatingly long interim between Movietone albums putting out discs like this, I’ll be a happy camper.
Gringo: http://www.gringorecords.com
