Tuesday 20 January 2015

Soak - Sea Creatures


We've been waiting for this one for a while now, but we've finally reached the point of no return - this is the moment where Bridie Monds-Watson, aka SOAK, becomes the bona fide star she was always destined to be.

Having ended 2014 with two incredibly well received singles with "Blud" and "B a noBody", as well as being one of the few artists to make both the BBC Sound of 2015 and the Blog Sound of 2015 lists, it seemed inevitable that the next song that she released would have to be a pretty special one to keep the momentum going, and by gum, she's smashed it.

"Sea Creatures" was the song that made everyone in her native Northern Ireland fall in love with her when she released it back in 2012, including this blog (it made my Top 20 songs of the year), and I've grown to love it even more since learning the meaning behind the song - the song's about finding strength after being bullied (and goodness knows I could have used some of that growing up), with the titular sea creature being the name that she gave the tormentor.

The song has been re-recorded for her upcoming debut album, and my goodness, is it stunning. The sparse instrumentation of guitar, piano and percussion of the 2012 has been built upon with layers of lush strings and ambient noise. If there's a better breakthrough song released this year, I will be very surprised - by the end of the year I fully expect to see one lyric in particular ("I pray for you, and you know I don't like Jesus") to be one of the year's top Reddit flairs.

"Sea Creatures" is the moment that SOAK will soar straight to the stratosphere. If this song does not storm the UK Top 40, not being dislodged for months on end, then I will be a very sad captain indeed.

"Sea Creatures" is released on March 16th.


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