For one reason or another The Soft Pack have commanded a lot of attention in the music press during the year.  Their sound and their attitude has been elevated beyond its modest San Diego garage origins to represent a call-of-arms to the pure bare-bones adrenaline-rush-of-guitars sound.  But is this fervency justified?  A cursory listen to their 10” EP ‘Extinction’ tells you all you need to know about this group.

A fundamental knowledge of songwriting is evident i.e. they clearly know that going from E to A makes for a pleasant but unspectacular chord change, whereas then going from A to C is a little bit more unpredictable.  But beyond that their skills are completely unknown – either because they don’t know anything beyond their extremely limited sound or they truly believe that this brand of utilitarian post-punk represents the pinnacle of their sonic potential.  The bass-line rarely largely stays firmly stuck on the chord root note and a simple 6-string strum is the method of choice from the guitars.

In other words its an album we could probably all make ourselves.   But that’s not to say the record The Soft Pack have created is not without worth.  It does make for a reasonably exciting, primal listening experience.  ‘Call It A Day’ evokes memories of a mid-60s Stones with vocalist Matt Lankin drawling fitting the part perfectly.  The erroneously titled ‘Future Rock’ works well as a ‘White Light/White Heat’ artistic shout-athon.  The ramshackle, unmelodic nature of ‘American’ shows a hint of lo-fi experimentation, one could definitely imagine it cropping up for five seconds on The Chart Show’s Indie Chart countdown in the early 90s.  But overall this is a record to simply be enjoyed rather than dissected and analysed, and provided you approach it with realistic expectations the chances are you’ll have a blast.  Isn’t it weird how alternative rock has become the music we need to leave our brains at the door for?

Gavin Midgley