Soular - Love Crash Heal CD Review
New Mexico Indie Band Soular Release Latest Album Love Crash Heal
Apr 27, 2007
- Genre: indie / alternative / rock
- Marsh (vocals / keyboards), Ian Byrd (drums / vocals), Jared Ashcraft (bass / vocals), Brian Lee (guitars / vocals)
- Sounds like: Muse, Unbelievable Truth, Puressence
- Home: Albuquerque, New Mexico
- Soular
Formed five years ago by friends Marsh and Jared, and completed by Brian and Ian, New Mexico indie band Soular have taken the traditional way to where they are today – promoting their own self-produced CD's to local radio stations and gaining a faithful live following thanks to their mesmerising shows. Yet it wasn't until 2004's Time And Space that they found the sound they're so at ease with on their latest release, Love Crash Heal.
Mixing the influences that all four members of Soular bring to the party, Love Crash Heal is a wonderful mix of soulful indie rock infused with a little mystery. Bringing to mind British favourites Muse as well as cult Manchester band Puressence, the sound of Soular is awash with keyboards, crunching guitars and downright dirty bass, all held together by confident drumming and the lead vocals of Marsh, ably supplemented by the remaining three band members.
From Funk To Indie
Opening and title track Love Crash Heal is a short, sub-three minute burst of energy that acts as a good introduction to what Soular has to offer. With an almost funk-like guitar riff, it evokes something you might have heard on Michael Mann's original Miami Vice TV series, except brought bang up to date with gorgeous vocals and overlaid synths combining to subtle effect.
So This Is The Way It Feels follows, and shows a smooth transition from funk indie to more traditional hook-laden choruses and keyboards showing that not only do Soular have the ambition, but the songs to go with it.
Songs That Stand Out
One of the standout tracks on the album is fourth song Take Me Away, which is gaining positive radio feedback. With just a hint of Unwritten by British songstress Natasha Bedingfield of all people, this is a slow-burning, solidly crafted gem of an indie pop song, with strong vocals and a fluid guitar solo burning its way all the way through the song, all held up by some of the deepest bass you'll hear this side of a dance festival.
Tomorrow Never Comes continues the slower paced songs on Love Crash Heal, and is the one you can see fans holding their lighters or mobile phones aloft at the arenas that Soular must surely be ready to start selling out regularly. Kept on just the right side of credibility, it's a throwback to the classic rock ballads of the late 'eighties and early 'nineties.
Things are taken up a notch with the blistering Hush, with menacing bass filling out a track that is perfectly paced, with the knowledge that bubbling underneath it all is an indie rock lesson in how to grab a listener and keep them in your grasp.
From Out Of The Shadows
Other songs on the album, like the single-in-waiting Never and the beautifully gentle Once In A While, show that Soular can not only rock out with the best that indie has to offer, but also not be afraid to show their gentler, more melodic side.
It's for this reason that Soular are beginning to generate quite a buzz Stateside. With a huge tour currently under way that takes the band all the way through to the Freedom Celebration Festival in Kansas in July, Soular have released an album in Love Crash Heal that's not only an instant fix, but a long-term cure for indie fans so long starved of the kind of music that only Muse and a few other bands seem to be capable of making these days. And with Muse always just one step away from seemingly disbanding, it's satisfying to know there's a worthy deputy ready to step in.
