The Soft Province – The Soft Province
Three Ring Records
February 22, 2011

What It Sounds Like:  Indie pop meets shoegaze drones in a mix that ultimately ends up lacking.

If you’re going to play some indie pop, then do it.  Keep yourselves pretty happy most of the time – shine up your guitars and keys, and let that sweet sunshine shine out bright.

If you’re going to shoegaze, then do it.  Let your guitars ring.  Drooooooooone.  Distort it to smithereens sometimes.  Know your limits as a band, and stay true.

The Soft Province try to combine these two areas.  Their website doesn’t use the term shoegaze, but they actually hit the nail on the head quite well as far as the sound is concerned, and to me – it doesn’t sound very appealing.   “Drawing on Mike and Jace’s love of the pop song and long repetitive drones, the album spans the distance between the concise pop song structure of Francoise Hardy and the psychedelic organ drones of Broadcast.”

Broadcast – ok.  Francoise Hardy? I was born in 1986.  I’m not overly familiar with French pop singers from the 1970s (aren’t you shocked?), and I’m a-doubtin’ that many fans of The Soft Province are either.

One-half of The Soft Province is Jace is from The Besnard Lakes.  I’ve been wanting to check out their new release, but simply have not been able to do so as of yet.  If this record is any indication however, it’s not spurring me to hurry up and do it anytime soon.  Why?  Because the songs here, overall, are boring.  Maybe these guys like drone, and I can certainly handle it in some senses, but in their case, drone is just coming off as another word for repetition and…

Wait.  Isn’t that what they said up in that quoted paragraph?  “Drawing on Mike and Jace’s love of the pop song and long repetitive drones….”

Yep, that’s what they said.

Hmm.

I don’t know if I can fault them or not.  They’re doing exactly what they set out to do.  Combine the pop song and repetitive droning.

The issue is that each song is simply – mediocre.  It’s then followed by another mediocre song, and another, and another, and another.  But again, isn’t that just another way to kind of say…droning?

If you’ve made it this far, you’ll by now hopefully have caught on to what I have been doing – droning.  On and on.  About nothing really in particular.  Droning about droning.  At least they add the pop elements to it, less it would be completely un-listenable.

I’m sure there’s some people out there who may dig this.  Certainly listen to the two songs below, and if they catch some interest for you – great!  But for me?  I’ll pass.  Maybe I’ll pull this out again in a year or two and see if it does anything for me then…

At least the cover art is pretty cool.

3.5/10

If you had to listen to two tracks:  I See Two Eyes / The Broadway Coastline