PREMIERE | Soft Animal, "Nice and Easy"

Introducing Soft Animal; courtesy of the band.

From Goner Records, Fat Possum, Infinity Cat, Jeffrey Drag Records and countless other imprints and upstarts; there has always been a constant Southern organic array of talents that have helped tune our world a little bit differently. Applying the focus now on rising band Soft Animal from the neighborhood of Leonidas, New Orleans — the group makes their debut with the shambling electric energy of "Nice and Easy". The garage blasted bliss is delivered by guitarist/vocalist Charley Ray with bandmates Becca Rhode, Federico Mejia and Hayden Corwin that cook up classic freak beat chords with a sense of succinct modern economies. Taking cues from the counter culture canon of bands that made music for jukeboxes (as opposed to long-players); Soft Animal summons the audio designs of dissonant measures that orchestrate chaos in a concerted array of amplified elements and sonically charged items of interest.

“Nice and Easy” rocks in that familiar way like when the mods became psych rockers in the mid 60s. Soft Animal flips through those dog-eared back pages of anachronistic anarchists that exhibits the timeless nature of stripped down rock & roll. Rhythm guitars seesaw with the motions of attitude, anxiety and angst as Ray wears all the emotion and feelings on full display in an impassioned delivery that leads the audience to a gateway of squalling guitar solos. Soft Animal’s style struts like an artful band of dodgers with a sound suited for all the dives in all the world with an eye set on the venues of festival stages everywhere.

Soft Animal live at Old Arabi Bar in New Orleans; press photo courtesy of the band.

Listen to more from Soft Animal via Spotify.