The Bird Is Coming Down to Earth

iTunes Review

The sound of Seattle's Soft Hills has been steadily evolving into something deeper and more powerful with each release. Producer Matt Brown enables the band to reach greater resolution. The earnest pop melody underscoring "Chosen One" becomes an epic battle in just three and a half minutes, with torrents of feedback lending support to singer Garrett Hobba's Anglophile-inspired vocals. A great psychedelia is evoked in the appropriately titled "Tidal Waves," while "Purple Moon" sways with the gentle, haunted feel of the best of the '80s Paisley Underground scene, where bands like Rain Parade and The Three O'Clock found ways to reinvent the mystique of The Byrds and The Velvet Underground into their own image. Comparisons to Fleet Foxes, Grizzly Bear, and Downpilot are in the ballpark but only tell a part of the Soft Hills story. The easeful guitar chimes of "Return to Eden" and the sound of the wind whipping outside come close to approximating the reverb-heavy recordings of early Red House Painters while further establishing Hobba's excellent songwriting abilities.