Album Review: SOAK - Grim Town

22-year-old Northern Irish wunderkind SOAK, aka Bridie Monds-Watson, is back. After an auspicious debut, the Derry native returns with a handsome follow-up with plenty of upfront appeal, hoisted on the back of enormous natural talent. Before We Forgot How To Dream was a valiant (and largely rewarding) attempt to explore innocence and youth, and her new record Grim Town feels like a concentrated effort to confront the realities of being an adult. It’s dystopia-lite, a side-eye to existential dread. Its stylish melancholy is buoyed by exuberant, whimsical arrangements, recalling older masters of flippant romantic nihilism like The Clientele, or Tindersticks, sung with the glossy-lipped chutzpah of Lykke Li.

Every song is dense with impressively layered instrumentation, and she’s not shy with hooks. SOAK has a natural ability to work the body with light-footed, confident fluff before delivering killer blows of lilting harmony and devastatingly romantic sentiment. Lead single Everybody Loves You is a perfect example, its simple, irresistible chorus bound to melt hearts everywhere.

If there are issues, they lie with SOAK not knowing when to quit. It’s a classic kill-your-darlings problem, as most songs here could sit comfortably as singles on any given alt-pop record from the last decade. Grim Town loses its impact over 15 tracks, and despite occasionally reaching extraordinary highs (Missed Calls, Valentine Shmalentine), it becomes a bit of a slog at the tail-end.

There’s nothing wrong with being ambitious, but trimming the fat is an important skill that, once SOAK learns, will vastly improve her output.