Soars: A New Band in Full Flight

I listened to Soars (La Société Expéditionaire), the debut album by the quartet Soars, before I knew they were from Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley. I went to college there and remember well the eerie melancholy of fading heavy industry and low wet clouds. Soars — Briana Edwards, Chris Giordani, David Kresge and Anthony Perrett —  make a noisy alluring rock that suits their setting. Edwards' distant-angel singing is wreathed in frosty reverb; the chime and crunch of the guitars in "Young Adult" and "The Sun Breaks Every Way But One" suggest bird song and wolf growls wrapped in fog. This is an indistinct music, a sum of overtones instead of notes, with attractive hints of turn-of-the-Nineties British drone — Ride with a female sigh; a less assaultive My Bloody Valentine. But Soars, in their first half-hour on record, do beguiling things with sweetness, distortion and suspense. (la-soc.com)