Easy Souls are an independent band of music students based in California, USA who has just grabbed my attention with the release of their second album, Something Simple.
By Graeme Smith
Led by pianist and songwriter Aiden Mitchell-Rodriguez and multi-instrumentalist producer Daniel Granados, Easy Souls are a fluid collective that bring in the contributions of other artists when needed. Aiden and Daniel were brought together through a shared of psych rock, including classic acts like The Beach Boys and Pink Floyd, and more modern bands like Tame Impala.
As is reflected in its title, Something Simple is an album pulled together from very little. Without a lot of cash to work with, Easy Souls wrote and recorded the album themselves, and there’s a sense of that in the way it plays. We are invited, raw and unfiltered, into their world of dark, psychedelic folk.
Things open bright and breezy. The jangly strings of Scramble Brain canter along, but there’s an edge to the story of the lyrics, soulfully delivered by the vocals. Things take a campy yet spooky turn as the track develops. There’s so much to unpack even though it’s a relatively stripped-back track, and it’s only a hint of what’s to come.
Across twelve tracks, Easy Souls give us brooding melancholia (Numbones, Beach Bums), dreamy distortion (How Much Longer?), cosmic philosophy (Where Were You Back Then?), and hazy romanticism (Hello There., She’s My Kind of Wonderful). Scratch at the Door is a beautifully indefinable and macabre mid-album highlight.
Textures are abound in a collection of songs that rarely end in the way indicated by their starts. Yet, though we are kept on our toes, everything hangs together well, and collectively the tracks of Something Simple take us on a journey right up to its closer and title track, a gentle and captivating duet with Ash.
Given the DIY approach, Something Simple is a sterling effort from a band who clearly know their stuff when it comes to putting together music. Easy Souls have combined classic and modern influences seamlessly and given us something pleasingly unique. It’s challenging yet comforting in its exploration of the human condition.
Something Simple is out now and you can check it out below.
