The Soft Cavalry - The Soft Cavalry: Review
is the new project of former Slowdive member Rachel Goswell and her husband Steve Clarke. Goswell has been busy in the past few years with the supergroup album Minor Victories in 2016 and the self-titled Slowdive record in 2017, so coming into The Soft Cavalry she has both a veteran status and an active prescence in the worlds of modern dream pop and shoegaze.
Review By Lavender:
Slowdive is absolutely legendary as one of the big three shoegaze bands and a prime example of the youthful energy for experimentation that shoegaze was built on. Since their run in the 90s Rachel hasn't slowed with her output of music I've enjoyed. The 2016 Minor Victories record was one of my picks for the most underrated of the year and one that I still enjoy revisiting, but in 2017 Slowdive released their first new record in over 20 years and Slowdive is the record that truly got me back into Rachel's output. That record landed in my top 10 albums of the year in 2017 with its perfect mix of shoegaze and dream pop sounds of new and old. So with The Soft Cavalry I'll admit I wasn't expecting big things from the project and after a handful of singles I really wasn't any clearer on what would be coming next. But now that the record is here I have to say it has its bright spots, but lacks the creativity of Rachel's last two full length outings.
There were three singles released in the lead up to this record and I came away from the bunch with admittedly mixed reviews. Dive was the lead single for the record and serves as the opening track to the record. Unfortunately I am no more into the track here as I was when I first heard it as the wandering dream popisms hint at something heavier or more intensive but never really make it there. The vocals are really the only highlight for me as they get better and better as the song goes on.
Never Be Without You is a slight improvement that delivers on some bouncy and catchy dream pop with a sweet sentiment. The track doesn't really do much to stand out but it is pretty blissful when its on and a solid addition to the record, if also a confusing choice for a single. Bulletproof was far and away the best single and one of the more interesting tracks here. It feature a driving synthetic drum beat that sounds more like a Glass Animals song than anything shoegazey. The performance is pretty measured but it fits the style of the track well and comes out on the other end as a pretty unique and well crafted tune.
With most of these tracks pulling heavily from places you'd expect if you're familiar with Rachel's prior musical projects the worst offenses this record pulls is a handful of tracks so boring they sound computer generated, especially in the second half. Mountains is a wandering piano ballad that goes absolutely nowhere and stays completely nondescript through its entire runtime. The Ever Turning Wheel is a decent closing track that tries to be a very dramatic and building closing song but ultimately the progression is a little bit boring and the band does it better on other tracks here.
At other points on this record they make some small decisions that really kneecap otherwise good songs. Careless Sun sounds like an ELO song with huge walls of keys and glitchy vocals this thing could have fit in as one of the weaker tracks on Out Of The Blue. The track stands out but in a really bad way with the frontal keys throwing off any kind of flow that the record had in its dreamy and distant aesthetic, I really don't think bombastic was the way to go with this song here. Spiders is a song I really want to like that features some swelling background vocals that remind me heavily of Duran Duran's Ordinary World, but the track features a horrid bassline that's one of the worst thing I've heard all year and it persists throughout the ENTIRE track. It becomes hard to focus on any of the songs elements or its progression with the sheer ugliness hanging in the background and I just with anything else, including silence, had been there instead.
Thankfully some musicality and creativity shine through on a number of these tracks. Passerby features some great classic whispered shoegaze style vocals. The track is an excellent ballad that sonically fits in with the last Slowdive record, which is high praise. The track has some absolutely immaculate keys and a gorgeous string background but still manages to sound fittingly spacey in its execution. The Velvet Fog features some of my favorite guitar work on the project and is a pretty solid tune, the only complaint I have is that the warm hearthy vocals don't really fit the style of the song the best.
Only In Dreams is unfortunately not a Weezer cover but instead a very patient ballad I like quite a bit. The low-fi recording was a great choice for some of the most intimate and understated vocals on the entire project The song transitions effectively between its passages and I'm surprised by how much I ended up enjoying it. The Light That Shines On Everyone is an acoustic guitar ballad with some extra backing strings added on, its a decent track that stays very mellow and mixes in some catchy refrains for an ultimately satisfying final product.
Home is the last track I have left to talk about and while this song gets off to a pretty underwhelming start it gets way, WAY better. The track builds into an arena sized dramatic composition with killer performances. The last two minutes of this track are some of the most climactic and triumphant moments I've heard all year and this track really sneaks up on you with how fantastic it is.
The Soft Cavalry is the album I've been anticipating from Rachel when she has gone above and beyond my expectations the past two times. The album has a lot going for it from a musicality standpoint and there is a lot good here, but what fresh ideas come up are few and far between and executed very inconsistently. 5.5/10
