New Suite by Soft on Crime

The first album from Dublin three-piece Soft on Crime, New Suite packs a hefty punch in a short space of time. Twelve songs, twenty-six minutes; alternately expansive, claustrophobic, bruised, generous and questioning, it manages to be at once raw and crafted, guarded and open, restless and dynamic, leaving the listener both sated and keen to return.
Rehearsed in a damp basement, recorded in a converted swimming pool, continued in the band members’ homes, and finished in a clandestine fifteen-minute visit to the music department of a nearby college, New Suite has had a long and occasionally complex gestation.
It seems this might be the Soft on Crime way – imposing boundaries in order to push past them, straining at their own limitations, working hard to sound effortless.
Drawing on references from psyche-punk, new wave, college-rock and more, Soft on Crime have created a powerful document of where they’ve been at since the release of their 3 Song 7” in November 2020. Combining the melodic sensibilities of vintage powerpop with the fuzz tectonics and furious pounding of the classic 80s strum and thrum era, there are hints here of the Soft Boys, Feelies, Vic Godard, Hüsker Dü and more.
Yet for all that, New Suite is a statement that could only have been made by this band, Soft on Crime, at this time: more than its set of influences; marked as much by the process of how it was made as by the intention brought to creating it. Already the band is looking ahead, thinking about the next set of propositions. What shape that might take is as yet unknown. For now they invite you to clear your mind, turn up the volume, listen and enjoy.

Karen Elliott, November 2022

Short, sharp, melodic psyche-pop from Dublin.

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