The Soft Moon - Deeper

The dark crevices of the album cover to Deeper have uncertain dimensions but the image is clearly bleak. Likewise, the music has a very unsettling mood, but the emotional content takes some deciphering. The Soft Moon’s Luis Vasquez sought exile in Italy, and set about transferring his thoughts to the music you hear on Deeper. The oppressive tone is comparable to Faith by The Cure, and reflects, in this case, one man’s attempt to wrestle with his inner demons, including suicidal feelings.   

The Soft Moon’s musical palette is a blend of post-punk, Krautrock, goth and EDM, and the reference points are open-ended. The emotional centrepiece of the album is the track ‘Wasting’, a gloomy piece which miraculously salvages from its dispiriting tone a dark beauty courtesy of some lovely chambered synth.

Another track that shakes the adversity, this time through locomotion, is ‘Desertion’. The slow techno on this track resembles Japan’s ‘The Quiet Life’, sounding like a decommissioned English train rattling across the Indian countryside. LIkewise ‘Wrong’ which transforms into dark techno, but is not for a moment evocative of anything other than doom.

I have to say, the sturm and drang of Deeper is not an easy listen, but then it was not intended that way. Its disclosure of personal anguish is set against music which very ably reflects that anguish in its various states of expression. Insofar as the musical programme can be divorced from its mood, Deeper is a very intoxicating album.