Keep Me in Your Soft Sights
On yeule’s fourth proper album, the glitchy synthpop artist strips the glitch, pop, and the even much of the synth to totally reinvent her sound as a dreamy shoegaze rocker, and the results are stunning.
softscars
yeule
Dream Pop
The truly fascinating thing about yeule’s transformation from gleaming glitch pop to noisey rock is that, all the signs were there. Like any good locked-room mystery, softscars feels more like a facepalm realization that this was all so obvious. It brings her past work into a new light, pointing out all the little bits of evidence that prove this is where we were heading all along. The songwriting here is…pretty much the same as any past effort; softscars is just a change is aesthetic, window dressing really, but that change is magnificent.
The opener, “x w x,” makes the change in direction blatantly obvious from the first note. The album explodes in a Joy Formidable-esque banger, and the first verse ends with yeule screaming into the mic at full throat, as if she is exorcising every demon in the world.
The following “sulky baby” brings in a lot more of the dream pop influence, taking inspiration from Cocteau Twins and Slowdive. Her vocals are reminiscent of Soccer Mommy as she sings over a lush bed of shoegaze guitars and plucked strings.
The title track brings some of the the glitch back, with a programmed bass pounding away, but the effect is more like Bat for Lashes’ “Marilyn” than anything like yeule’s previous efforts. Her delivery in the chorus, is a combination of Grimes and Björk, occasionally mixed with the exasperation of the more dream pop-oriented (and criminally overlooked) Fear of Men.
“daizies” is something like a fever dream mash up of Gish-era Smashing Pumpkins and The Radio Dept. playing over Ellie Rowsell (from Wolf Alice). The chorus is a monstrous tidal wave of guitars, while the verses are understated and allow yeule to sing her piece. In the last minute, the song switches into a bittersweet, indie pop ditty sung over acoustic guitar, and the effect is jaw-dropping.
It’s been a minute since a “new” dream pop album has come out of nowhere. Sure, Beach House are fantastic, and Slowdive’s new record is pretty great, but they’re established and still (at least in my opinion) haven’t missed. For yeule to take such a swing in genre-switching and then also hit a homerun, that’s something to be commended, lauded, and maybe even gawked at for years to come.
Unrelated P.S. Let’s Go O’s!
