The French Singer-songwriter Soko has just released her third studio album Feel Feelings. It’s easy to mistake it for just another heartbreak story, but the underlying sense of self-love and acceptance is nothing shy from extraordinary.
Soko’s voice can go from two extremes. Within this album we get to experience the distant, tired side of Soko’s voice, where her pain is shared with our ears, sounding similar to a sad Billie Eilish song. In Looking For Love, Soko’s voice makes her sound like she is slowly but surely giving up on life. Meanwhile, out of nowhere, we get a really deep and full sound from her, almost sounding a bit grungy like in Don’t Tell Me So Smile where we can only assume her frustrations are finally finished being caged up inside of her.
It’s quite easy to feel dizzy from Feel Feelings, whether that is to represent the turmoil in her head is something that can only be questioned by the listeners’ experiences themselves. With many synths and carnival-like rhythms (like in Blasphemie), you can feel like you have just come off the Waltzer yourself. Of course, just like the funfair, it’s not all just spinning cups and roller-coaster rides. Oh, To Be A Rainbow is calm and slow with a small hint of sexiness and dreams along with Hurt Me With Your Ego which carries an acoustic pop style to the album. With gorgeous harmonies throughout, we get a light Evanescence style from her.
Now What is a bit more Indie, and although may sometimes be difficult to understand exactly what she is singing as her vocals sound a million miles away, you understand the journey of wanting to accept yourself.
As a songwriter, there are some strong messages within Soko’s tracks, Being Sad Is Not A Crime gives a positive message just from the title, all about remembering who you are and not letting the negative people affect you, or accepting help when they do affect you is a great theme to have in a song. To get her message across there are a few songs like Replaceable Heads which uses spoken samples to really portray clearly what she wants to get across, a cool effect that quite a few artists do nowadays.
Despite her fans showing their appreciation wherever she goes, Soko craves love, whether that be from herself, potential lovers or strangers, we are taken on her 12-track journey to find it. I hope she does.
Score: 3/5
Leave a comment