Albums I’m Excited About, July 5th

S/T — The Soft Cavalry

Rachel Goswell is a founding member of shoegaze heavyweights Slowdive — if you’re a fan of the genre you certainly recognize her heavenly vocals. She has been extra active lately, both touring with Slowdive, and working on a new project with her husband called The Soft Cavalry.

This album is a warm embrace of sound that has clearly been honed over the course of an entire career. Its mix is near perfect, and surrounds you in a way that makes you almost believe the sound is coming from parts of the room where speakers don’t exist. Beyond its technical achievement, it’s a lyrical and composition masterclass. It leans more towards the pop side of shoegaze, avoiding distortion pedals in favor of light electronic noise and processing, but keeps a familiar delayed high end to remind us of where she came from. It’s a fine whiskey of an album, which has gotten better over the few listens I’ve given it.