(Pod/Inertia)

Treading too softly

San Diego based four-piece The Soft Pack were formerly known as The Muslims, but changed names (for whatever reason), and Extinction is a convenient gathering of all the material they’ve put to tape so far. The music on offer takes the form of what is unfortunately fairly toothless garage rock. All the ingredients are there; jangly guitars, loping bass lines, carelessly drawled vocals. But it just doesn’t seem to come together. There’s none of the aggressive swagger of a band like Black Lips or the jagged lo-fi edge of Thee Oh Sees. Lacking these things, a few good hooks would do. Alas. It sounds like garage rock made by people who have never played music in a garage. It’s gentle, breezy, almost polite, with the angular riff on American the closest things get to discord. Matt Lamkin’s vocals have no grit or dimension, and it’s the difference between a song like the bluesy Call It A Day working and not working. The songs are perfectly listenable, but it’s such a well-trodden sound that being listenable isn’t always enough. The Strokes already wrote this book a few years back and Extinction shows The Soft Pack as having little to add. Extinction is technically only an EP (despite having ten tracks) so there’s still plenty of time for improvement. Tracks like Religion and the title track show promise. But overall, Extinction just sounds too watered down to make an impact.

**½

MICHAEL PINCOTT

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