Soft Tigers
Gospel Ambitions

Gospel Ambitions begins with maniacal laughter, half Muppets, half bedroom gear-geeks. They’re testing out keyboard tones and whooping it up. Soft Tigers; the name does suggest a certain goofy eccentricity, well padded, corners rounded off, in keeping with the band’s stated mission to stand out amongst a Sydney music scene “intent on spiky guitars and yelpy boys.” The bands that the Soft Tigers are pitting themselves against are consistent and minimal, often to a fault – the fault line where hypnotic repetition topples over into boredom. By contrast, there isn’t a single track amongst these 12 that you could call representative of the Tigers’ sound. After the gleeful ‘Intro’ comes the muted, downbeat ‘Everything’s Fucked’, which is followed by the bite-sized power-pop slice ‘Creation’ – imagine Sonic Youth’s ‘Teenage Riot’ reworked by Ratcat and you’re getting there.

The retro musical references are perhaps the one thread of consistency: ‘Karate’ stars Furious Five-style rapping and ‘M.A.R.I.A’ – also available at shows on seven-inch vinyl – has a central guitar riff that, if it’s not appropriated from some long-forgotten soft-rock hit sure sounds like it. The lyrics rhyme “disco” with “did you catch that last Riders show?” – another sly thumb-wave in the direction of the post-punk revivalists. The seven-inch version has a minimal Bumblebeez remix on the b-side, scattered with vintage-sounding synth drums. Their 1980s obsession puts the Soft Tigers in closer league with their rivals than they might have considered, though their nostalgia is a more child-like one, with songs about ice cream and the joy of seeing Metallica graffiti on the way home from the shops. There are no speed-fuelled, sunglasses-after-dark fantasies here; the scene is warm and fully lit, a backyard or a bedroom in bloom.

And it comes on cassette tape. Very comforting.

by Emmy Hennings