SOAK – If I Never Know You Like This Again

Label: Rough Trade Records
Released: 20th May 2022

We’ve just survived two phenomenally unforgettable years, but how much do you actually remember?

There are likely some details or emotional nuances that you’ve forgotten. However, the same cannot be said for Irish singer-songwriter Bridie Monds-Watson, aka SOAK, who has chronicled their pandemic in the form of song-memories on third album, ‘If I Never Know You Like This Again’. Fuelled by a fear of forgetting their history, SOAK presents microscopic documentation of even the banalest of experiences in this chapter of their life with no veneer or rose-tinted filter.

Despite being definitively personal, every track on ‘If I Never Know You Like This Again’ has immense resonance thanks to the expressive vocal performance. While carrying the record’s flowing melodies, SOAK imbues an incredible weight of emotion. Whether lamenting the woes of homesickness in ‘red-eye’ or struggling to endure the slowness of an uneventful year in ‘purgatory’, there’s an articulation of sentiment that cannot be misunderstood. Set upon a lo-fi bed of guitar and drums, the album’s lyrics are razor-sharp. “Spitting at local delicacies, you don’t care who you offend – you’re sixty percent vegetarian,” they belt in ‘baby, you’re full of shit’, leaving no doubt as to where their opinions lie.

It has never been so easy to peer into a portrait of an individual’s mind. Don’t worry if the last few years seem hazy in retrospect, because this album will bring all the memories flooding back.