Having risen from the ashes of Little Green Cars several years ago, Dublin fourpiece Soda Blonde make all the right moves on their smouldering second album.
As with their Choice Prize nominated debut Small Talk, all eyes and ears will be on enigmatic front woman Faye O'Rourke, a woman possessed of one of the most beguiling voices in pop music right now.
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With Adam O'Regan (keys and guitar), Donagh Seaver O'Leary (bass) and Dylan Lynch (drums) curating a slick and elegant sound, her siren call moves sensuously through these songs of vulnerability, self-doubt and defiance.
Opening with a flourish of strings on the modulated electronica of Midnight Show, Soda Blonde’s attention to detail never lets up. On the title track, their ambition is really borne out with harp glissandos and a slow build that sees the song boldly switch tempo and mood halfway through.
There is a high degree of sophistication at play here. O’Rourke’s gift for cryptic but deeply personal lyrics shine on album stand-out An Accident, which has something of the desolation and yearning of Radiohead, while pin drop piano ballad, Less Than Nothing, is another sign of just how far Soda Blonde have come.
Dream Big is intense, dramatic stuff. It really lives up to that title.
Alan Corr @CorrAlan
