Review Summary: It’s cold outside always
The Soft Moon’s final release is a harrowing meditation on identity, lies, and self-image. This haunting quality is made only more potent due to Luis Vasquez’s tragic death earlier this year. Vasquez’s work has always been moody and introspective. However, Exister is an album of extremes, sprawling out over the musical and emotional spectrum. Vasquez’s vulnerability and intensity is at an all-time high and it shows in the final product.
Sad Song sets the tone of despair and dissatisfaction Vasquez has with himself. A minimal, intimate opener to the album, founded on Vasquez’s vocals and gloomy, floating synths, the song gradually builds in energy and emotion but ends just before the dam breaks. We are launched into pulsing, blistering industrial synths with the start of Answers. The song utilizes an extremely simple but effective chorus with Vasquez frantically whispering “I can’t live this way” while synths wreak havoc.
Become The Lies is a more accessible, immediate song and the most upbeat on the record. Vasquez releases the despair he felt from his identity crisis and embraces the chaos. An infectious bass carries the song, bolstered by impressive guitar and vocal work. Monster similarly follows a traditional structure but with a completely different atmosphere. Featuring epic, sorrowful synths with Vasquez’s pleading vocals apologizing for “starting to become my other self again,” it showcases the main conflict that drives the album. Nada flexes the post-punk influences with squealing guitars and Vasquez’s cold, aloof delivery. These songs all quickly establish a distinct mood and drag you deeper into Vasquez’s tortured psyche as they progress.
The instrumental-oriented tracks accomplish deep story-telling in their own right. Face Is Gone and The Pit illustrate the disorder and volatility Vasquez feels within his mind. The former constructs a nightmarish, claustrophobic atmosphere with each element of the song meant to induce discomfort; whether it be through Vasquez’s creepy, echoey vocals, or the labyrinth of synths, noise, and percussion all doing battle with one another. With The Pit, paranoia and overstimulation seem to be the objective. Distant shrieks and a hulking, relentless bass erratically ramp up in intensity and jump out at you with no telegraph. Vasquez then throws us a curveball in Stupid Child. The song is 80 seconds of unbridled frustration and the purging of those feelings. Noisy, aggressive, and full of punk-energy, it still carries a sensitive quality.
The final act of the album focuses on Vasquez acknowledging his darker side might win in the end. “Him” features rapper Fish Narc and explores the Jekyll-Hyde dynamic with lyrics like “He knows my soul is down” while Fish whispers manipulatively “Itch itchy itchy palms itchy fingers”. Fish acts as the devil on Vasquez’s shoulder, tempting him to embrace the evil. It is an unconventional but fruitful collaboration. Another collaboration track, Unforgiven, has Vasquez howling about how his past mistakes have followed him. “You *** with my failures when you know I've tried to change”. Vasquez’s manic vocal delivery makes it feel like we are the very person he is pleading with. Alli Logout from Special Interest provides blood-curdling screams and vocalizes Vasquez’s unconscious desire to become a better person. These vocals coupled with the piercing, sinister electronics accomplish a desperate, regretful ambiance. The walls have finally closed in.
Exister as a whole takes influence from Nine Inch Nails’ industrial soundscapes, with the title track being akin to A Warm Place. Both are fragments of calm and melodic beauty in a sea of sonic and emotional turmoil. Though there are no lyrics or vocals, it seems Vasquez is trying to tell us it’s okay if you don’t entirely like or know yourself. All of us as humans go through some degree of discontentment. That is part of what it means to exist. Both bookends to the album have an anguished quality to them, but Exister seems to end more at peace.
Luis Vasquez has crafted a cathartic final release that will stick with you long after listening. Every track feels like a more honest, urgent confession than the one before. It is a shame we will be deprived of more contributions from an artist who was brimming with creativity and passion for his craft. Luis will live on through his powerful and touching art that countless people came to cherish.
