SOAK - If I Never Know You Like This Again LP (Eco Colour Vinyl)

Label: Rough Trade

With If I Never Know You Like This Again, SOAK’s Bridie Monds-Watson (they/ them) have shaken the hangover of their starry Mercury-nominated debut Before We Forgot How To Dream and their ambitious follow-up album Grim Town, and the pressures that came with them. Having written much of their new album when time felt at its slowest, Bridie, who has always had an obsessive need to document each chapter of their life, now makes a marvel of the mundane.

Alongside long-time collaborator Tommy McLaughlin (he/him), the two wrote most of the album together while listening obsessively to indie bands like Broken Social Scene and Pavement and Radiohead’s classic album The Bends. Previous SOAK albums had either been recorded remotely or by just two people, but If I Never... sees all the members of SOAK in the studio simultaneously. After being away from each other for the majority of the pandemic, it was important to create the record as a band, and the joyful energy of having everyone in the same room again is palpable.