Soft Kill - Escape Forever (2024)

Escape Forever (released in 2024) isn't the most recent Soft Kill release, but I'll review this one because I think it's the most remarkable of the recent Soft Kill stuff (and the guy doing Soft Kill is too prolific to review everything he does). It saw an important shift for Soft Kill, basically it's when it got quite happy. Could have been a disaster for the inspiration and the music, but no. It's not so much a change of style than a change of mood. It still reminds The Cure a lot (the sound, the singing), just now it reminds The Cure happier songs... And it turns out to be one of the best Soft Kill releases. Recommended!

 

The BC page. 

 

Soft Kill - Metta World Peace (2023)

Soft Kill is a post-punk / shoegaze one man project from Chicago. I enjoyed its previous releases and often considered reviewing one of them, but felt maybe it was a bit too generic. But Metta World Peace is a different beast. The post-punk / shoagaze with a prevalent The Cure influence is still the core of the music, but this time the songs are also built around hip-hop beats (with a few MCs as guests) and it works extremely well, making it the most memorable Soft Kill album. We already knew hip-hop producer sampling shoeagaze worked fine, Metta World Peace is proof shoegaze/post-punk artist using hip-hop beats and samples can produce great results too. Really addictive album that I can't recommend warmly enough!

The Bandcamp page.