Nicholas Coleman is the artist behind Softie. Strong Hold is the recent release from the artist which contains five songs. There’s a brief explanation about the sound on his Bandcamp page but I found this to sound like lo-fi bedroom beats mixed with subtle elements of shoegaze.
The EP starts with “Doser” and you are greeted with a 4/4 beat and bass line at first. There’s some guitar that starts to trickle in and rise in volume. The vocals which come in are barely above a whisper. I couldn’t make out any lyrics and perhaps that was the intent. The song feels sparse and moody. There aren’t any major changes to the song and it felt primarily about the nuance. “Schmo” is very similar in mood. It’s darker and subdued energy where most of the dynamics come from the guitar. There are ephemeral moments of beauty if you listen closely. The song is very lo-fi and again the words were very hard to make out or even notice at times. “Gifts'' rumbles along with a dissonant energy. Occasional ghostly vocals emerge and combine with guitar patterns. The whole song more or less stays in the same groove. There are some changes but all of it is subtle and revolves around some of the guitar work. This felt more ambient than anything to me besides the end where high end frequencies are introduced. “Flat:Still” is a slow burn. It feels like molasses as it pours over you. The vocals are barely noticeable on this song and there’s almost no change in energy. “Can I Be You” is the closer and the most realized song in the batch as well as the most dynamic. The guitars are more prominent and liked the more classic shoegaze aesthetic. As an engineer and songwriter myself for the past twenty-five years I thought the artist put a little too much on his plate. I think handing this off to a mastering engineer might have helped frequency distribution. The mixes are a bit narrow and personally think they might have benefited from more separation. Some of this is due to the accumulation on the lower end frequencies. Again this may have just been an artistic decision. This EP felt to me like it was more about mood than anything else which works. There are no real hooks to be found and vocals didn’t ever seem like a focal point. On that note I would love to hear the artist explore some of his ideas more on future releases. There are some interesting approaches to sound design and I think this is a solid start with some inventive ideas. I’m looking forward to hearing how the artist evolves.
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