On a few recent episodes of my new favourite podcast, Riff ‘n’ Chips, it has been mentioned that often an EP is a nice chance for a band to get to experiment with various ideas and styles. Ba’al has never been shy at mixing things up on any of its releases but Soft Eyes certainly sees them stretching out further than usual with stunning ease. Within the three tracks there is a bit of post-rock, post-metal and a heap of black metal related sounds, encompassing all these in a cohesive release is something Ba’al continues to excel at.
Although 2019s Reverence saw a change to a post-black metal style Ba’al still retained its early post-metal leanings and Soft Eyes again highlights both of these sides. Between ‘Ornamental Doll’ and ‘Yearn to Burn Bright’ there are terrific Norwegian style black metal vocals and also clean vocals which hark back to its first EP. Post-black metal is the order of the day and although there are flickers of post-punk in ‘Ornamental Doll’ and near Maserati type pulsing post-rock at the start of ‘Bamber Bridge’ the blasts and tremolo are never too far away.
The post-black metal is almost attacked from a blackened post-metal angle and so stays out of the generic tropes of the genre. The departure into various genres, the more metal post-metal that is threaded through and the dynamism in the instrumentation means this is a really refreshing listen. The three tracks are all individual yet sit well together and certainly do grab out at other influences more than usual.
Once again Joe Clayton has captured all of those sounds brilliantly at No Studio and with this being released on the exceptional Glasgow based Ripcord Records it further highlights the wonderful UK scene that is currently producing great things. Soft Eyes is another example of what a crucial band Ba’al are to the UK underground, it’s about time they got to break out of that a bit more and the three tracks here have more than enough quality to justify that occurring.
