Bridie Monds-Watson—the Irish woman who manifests her singer-songwriter facets as SOAK—can sound younger and older than her 18 years, revealing a convincing weariness in a deep lyric and then revealing adolescent inexperience with pretentious song-title spelling.
Monds-Watson neither celebrates nor reconciles the discrepancy between younger and older selves, and the imbalance is the tension that stays coiled throughout Before We Forgot How to Dream, her first full SOAK record.
The imbalance is especially audible in her vocal phrasing, which curls words inside a hoarse twang, or swoops into a vulnerable falsetto that isn’t sure about its ability to maintain altitude.
Residing within the voice is the self-consciousness Chan “Cat Power” Marshall, Shannon Wright and Ani DiFranco still expose, albeit much less often than Monds-Watson does, as if they were trembling during their first open-mic nights.
Outside the voice is the music, representing the other side of the imbalance. With producer Tommy McLaughlin, Monds-Watson refuses to stick to the overdetermined prettiness of folk music or the brandished abrasions of underground rock.
She instead structures each track—11 songs and three interludes that mix collage with transition—as grandeur in miniature, with a small chorus of backing vocalists here, a simple ensemble approximating orchestral sweep there and a muted flair for pop memorability everywhere.
“Reckless Behaviour” inclines toward the jangling sweetness of early R.E.M.; “Blud” progresses from strummed verses to refrains that hint at doo-wop tempos and sentiments; and “B a noBody” [sic: see earlier about pretentious spelling] lifts from music-box plinks to full, ringing melancholy.
At once confident and insecure, SOAK sways on a tightrope with Before We Forgot How to Dream, an album compelling on its own and as a question about what Monds-Watson will gain and what she will lose when she matures.
