Although Dead Soft has been putting out a steady stream of underground music since 2011, Oct. 18 marked the release of their long-awaited debut album, Big Blue. The group maintains an instrumental simplicity by sticking to electric guitar and drums, but lyrically they break the mold by exploring a rich, emotional landscape surrounding the band’s move from Vancouver.
In ***Big Blue, Dead Soft manages to capture the alternative punk rock mood and instrumentals from early 2000s bands like Green Day, giving us easygoing but impactful tracks like “I Believe You”, which serves as the thesis of the album. Written during a relocation of the band’s songwriters Nathaniel Epp and Keeley Rochon, it embodies their angst towards the unsustainable existence that many maintain in Vancouver.
Vancouver has become a city that’s notorious for pricing out its residents with rising rent costs. “I Believe You” starts the album off strong with the message of trusting yourself and allowing change to happen in lyrics like: “There’s a message waiting / I don’t know how to receive it / But I know that when I hear it I’ll believe it.”
While the album opens and ends with the equivalent of a shout, it also offers intimate and vulnerable moments where it’s more akin to a whisper. Songs like “The Static,” “Whatever I Want,” and “Snake” slow things down and show the band’s versatility. They experiment with long, drawn-out guitar notes and mix up vocals, like in “The Static” where Rochon’s voice is featured. She refreshes listeners with a dreamy echoing of the lyrics, “I don’t know why I panic / Wild is the wind but so is the static” to reflect the mantra she would repeat to herself to ease the dread and anxiety she experienced while living in Vancouver.
My only complaint for ***Big Blue is that they reserved the bulk of their musical experimentation until the end of the album. The first four tracks sound eerily similar to each other and, when played back to back, make the album seem one-dimensional when that’s not the case. Putting more thought into the organization of the album would have helped alleviate the feeling that listeners have heard the same guitar riffs and lyrical cadence before.
This debut album is easily Dead Soft’s most polished musical output to date, combining a mastered sound with a relevant and poignant message of longing for peace and coping with the changes that come with it. Lyrically, the message comes from a place of acceptance and trust, offering a hopeful perspective. Now based out of Gabriola Island, part of the Gulf Islands of B.C., the band has been influenced and molded by idyllic forests and a quiet atmosphere.
As Rochon expressed in a Killbeat Music interview: “Since we moved to the island we’ve been amazed by the way the light looks at dusk. Without man-made light sources there’s a short window of time after the sun sets but before the night falls where the sky emanates a deep blue glow. Big Blue represents a turning point … Ultimately my dream would be to have this record serve as a catalyst for healing.”
In a bustling city like Vancouver, where artists struggle to make ends meet, this album raises the question of what that does to the surrounding culture. If the individuals that create and heavily influence the culture of their community are unable to survive, how does that affect the rest of us?
Similarly, the Fraser Valley has been no stranger to rising property costs and increasing rates of homelessness. When cities become concrete mazes where hard-working people struggle to make a living, art can suffer. In response, I encourage everyone to get involved with local art and support it. Luckily, in the Fraser Valley it’s not just surviving, it’s thriving. Take the time to look at the events and shows going on in your area, and don’t be afraid to give them some love.
Big Blue succeeds in showcasing a refined representation of Dead Soft, and its message of accepting change and critique of the unsustainability of Vancouver are relevant and served on a hopeful note. Amidst electric guitar and punk rock vocals, the arrangement of Big Blue might leave listeners with the impression that the album is stale, but the delivery as a whole is hard to find faults with, surpassing much of their earlier work.
Image: Ryan Walter Wagner
Chandy is a biology major/chemistry minor who's been a staff writer, Arts editor, and Managing Editor at The Cascade. She began writing in elementary school when she produced Tamagotchi fanfiction to show her peers at school -- she now lives in fear that this may have been her creative peak.
