Review Summary: wait this reminds me of that one band what are they called again
For a record as deeply
unoriginal as
Feel It All Around, it is an immensely gratifying listening experience that spotlights a revival of a revival of a genre. Soul Blind do not aim to innovate; instead, the band accomplish an excellent balance and composure between grunge and shoegaze. With wonderfully dense and distorted guitars at the helmet, their debut album is equal parts intense and soothing while throwing it back to the ‘90s and mid-2010s alike. Thick melodies expand, propel, and cave in, while an oasis of (occasionally awkward) vocal inflections instill a sense of memorability. The explosive ‘Tribe’ forms a major highlight as it takes the record’s blueprint of dense tones and massive choruses to an extreme, however, a constant hint of despair exists in its sonic basement. With the exception of the brooding ‘Sparkle’ trading the darkness (no sun) of
Feel It All Around for more explicit daylight, the album ends up feeling somewhat homogenous. Besides this, you won’t exactly be finding any of Soul Blind’s lyrics on teenage wrists anytime soon: regardless, each line is highly catchy and perfectly hummable. While the record’s flaws and failures are rather obvious, such complaints are bound to mean nothing to hardcore fans of
graze, quite the contrary; this is an absolute treat we are happy to take a big bite out of. If anything, this first full length shows that Soul Blind are narrowly headed for great things, perhaps even heavenward if they continue to slowly crush it.
