SOAK - Grim Town 2xLP

Label: Rough Trade

Irish songwriter Bridie Monds-Watson was still in her teens when she released 2015's Before We Forgot How to Dream, her affecting debut album as SOAK. Arriving four years later, her follow-up, Grim Town, reacts to the realities of young adulthood in the late 2010s. A 14-track album framed by a scripted train departure and the optimistic "Nothing Looks the Same", it opens dramatically with "All Aboard." Inviting the marginalized -- and only the marginalized -- along for the ride, "Those who are unmedicated and have salaries or pension plans should vacate the carriage immediately." At least as much about the personal as the sociopolitical but set among working-class bars, scrapyards, and discount chains, Grim Town's searching lyrics are peppered with poetic turns of phrase like "Tears avalanche in search of a sleeve" and "Moulding sand castles with ashes of unwanted romantic advances."

With its mix of catchy and moving songs, an artful structure, and a way with words, Grim Town delivers a piece of Zeitgeist as well as a solid set of tunes.