Review Summary: two guys making sad music cause fuck it.
single soul generally has one tone; sad. not that that’s a bad thing, but it’s clear that this sort of one-dimensional mood can get tedious over time (empire! empire!, american football). however, single soul has been consistently evolving from being just a sad, doped-out teenager with an out of tune guitar and wimpy tone to an almost full band. at least it sounds like that. the tracks that single soul has presented are easily his strongest yet, because like i said, it finally sounds like a full band. jacob’s last record was definitely pointing towards this sort of sound, but it was coupled with more acoustic loneliness than this. the first track almost sounds like self defense family doing emo or something, for instance. the other tracks have some experimental tendencies, such as far more ambitious production, samples of pornstar monologues, and what sounds like strings. easily jacob’s best work yet; the logical conclusion of what single soul was reaching for on his last album.
the boring bathtimes side is definitely a sort of contrast to single soul’s. while single soul borrows more from various emo acts for his sound, boring bathtimes borrows more from post-punk or post-industrial gloomgaze a la have a nice life. the sound is stuffed, the vocals muffled in a good way, and everything is drenched in reverb. i hope i’m not making this sound derivative, because the one guy behind this side has definitely put his own spin on this sound. the overall feeling is similar to have a nice life, but there is a more distant vibe to all this noise. it’s not that there’s a bigger wall of sound, it really all just comes down to the way the vocals are so muffled; like a victim struggling to be heard. there is a constant feeling that something spooky is going to happen, and sometimes it's more haunting when not much really happens at all (i killed myself and went to heaven). most of the material is based around an acoustic guitar, but as the songs go on, the base is enveloped in the rest of the white noise. it's earthmoving, to say the least. very moving stuff; an improvement over his debut EP.
so next time you’re sad, listen to this. i don’t think there is much else to say beyond that.
