Opens fantastic, but chooses not to close
Megan Nash’s evolution is pristine. Not that her music is flawless by any means, but every project has built on the previous one in a satisfying way. Song Harvest Volume One showed off her husky voice and guitars that could snarl and twinkle, but it ultimately never felt like much more than a demo reel. She took those ingredients and cut them loose with more edge, a bluesy smolder and sweeping grandeur on Seeker to great effect. Four years later, she’s returned with Soft Focus Features, an album that copies Seeker’s jagged edges but pairs them with wonkier moods, post-punk melodies and some of her best writing to date. Sadly, her conscious choice to leave things unresolved leads to an unsatisfying finale.
Nash’s husky voice was suited for the heavy songs on Seeker, but Soft Focus Features is no rock record. Even when the music is at its most chaotic, like on “Chew Quietly / Clean Slate” and “Table for One Reprise,” she mostly sticks to a delicate coo. She pulls it off successfully, as her voice sounds gorgeous over the morose, intimate “Table for One” and “Another Silent Night.” Her vocals on “Quiet” perfectly capture the protagonist slowly losing their mind, waiting for attention from their partner, and she and her guest vocalists have great chemistry on “Are We Still In Love?” and “Table for One Reprise.” The repetitive chorus of the latter is redeemed by having multiple voices singing it, heightening its sense of desperation.
Unlike the blues-rock of Seeker, Nash’s dreamier instincts take over on this record, paving the way for some gorgeous soundscapes. The stripped-back cuts like “Table for One” are great, but the true highlights are the cosmic, reverb-soaked strumming on “My Own Heart” and the distorted shoegaze snarl of “Artifact.” “Quiet” features a thumping post-punk bassline acting as the perfect anchor for dreamy guitar strokes and Nash’s hushed delivery. And even though the record might not have the muscle of Seeker, she still manages to slip in a killer guitar solo on “Coffee.” Due to the pandemic, different chunks of the album were recorded individually and stitched together later, but it’s hard to tell, as the seams are well-hidden and the record ultimately feels cohesive.
Being a post-divorce album, Soft Focus Features is filled with unresolved feelings and confusion. “Another Silent Night” finds Nash desperate for any sort of stimulus to distract her from her grief and shattered dreams. “My Own Heart” finds her trying to throw herself into her music to hide from the pain. “Quiet” features the most memorable line: “you’ve got the kind of quiet that can kill,” a brilliant way of expressing how much their partner’s approval and attention meant. Still, this is not an angry record or one of denial—Nash never shies away from how gutted she is over the situation.
But there’s a knot of tension that Nash never attempts to cut through—she’s content to have the final line be “all I ever wanted was you,” with no discussion of what is to come after. This intentional lack of a resolution keeps the ending of Soft Focus Features from hitting as hard as it could. It might reflect her reality, but it doesn’t make for a good ending to an album when the rest of the project already hammered that point home. For some, the loose ends will work perfectly. For others, they might not. Either way, Nash’s top-notch performance and intoxicating atmospheres mean there’s still plenty to enjoy.
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