- Record Label: Dead Oceans Records
- Release Date: Jul 14, 2017
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Jul 14, 2017While everything on Japanese Breakfast’s proper sophomore effort isn’t entirely fresh, and its structure is somewhat loose, there’s a confidence and crispness to Soft Sounds that shows just how fully realized Zauner’s formerly homemade experiments have become.
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Jul 18, 2017Over repeated listens, the former evolves into a touching meditation on love’s complexity and erraticism, where introspection intercedes the Big Important Questions.
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Jul 19, 2017Soft vocals percolate through the record, lending it a remarkable emotional profundity. Though at times the record feels a little repetitive, Zauner’s lyrical skill keeps it from being boring.
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Jul 13, 2017Soft Sounds… isn’t quite as playfully subversive as Zauner’s big-rig guitar solo on “Everybody Wants to Love You”, but her work as Japanese Breakfast continues to draw its energy from transgressing both the expectations of herself and her audience.
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Jul 18, 2017Soft Sounds is full of pretty interludes of ambient noise, mixed with shoegaze and electropop touches.
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Aug 24, 2017It’s a wondrous gem of an album that, even at its most lustrous, manifests itself with biting precision.
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Q MagazineAug 1, 2017Personal but detached, fizzling but restrained, it's indie-pop with a brain and a soul. [Sep 2017, p.110]
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Jul 20, 2017Michelle Zauner conjures the macro in the micro. Her richly observed songs convey intimate details and observations that conjure the immensity of concepts like love, sex, and desire.
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Jul 18, 2017As with Psychopomp, the album’s most powerful moments come when Zauner examines seeming contradictions that actually aren’t or shouldn’t be.
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Jul 17, 2017This album is anything but a fad. It hangs around long after you listen, subdued but resolute in its capabilities. It is very much here to stay.
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UncutJul 13, 2017Zauner adds peppier number like "Machinist" and "Road Head" without ever sounding like she's spread too thin. [Aug 2017, p.32]
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Jul 13, 2017With Soft Sound From Another Planet, Michelle Zauner has moved beyond mourning to a solace far more celestial, communicating her grief through these poignant musical prayers aimed directly at the heavens and beyond.
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Jul 13, 2017Japanese Breakfast is turning into an artist with much to adore, unabashedly authentic but creating music that we can still all see a little bit of ourselves in.
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Jul 13, 2017The strained clarity of Zauner’s voice is what makes this album so beautiful, particularly during the contemplative balladry of This House. Moving and inspired, Soft Sounds From Another Planet is yet another lesson in guitar pop perfection.
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Jul 13, 2017Soft Sounds is ambitious not only because it throws so much in, but because it aims to push a coherent whole out the other end. It's experimental pop that wants to experiment while still sounding like pop, and it really works.
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Jul 13, 2017Soft Sounds from Another Planet is a giant leap forward for Japanese Breakfast; the move to a bigger sound results in a sure-handed modern pop record full of memorable songs, heart-wrenching vocals, and bottomless emotional depth.
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Jul 13, 2017The vast sonic palette perhaps mirrors the way that a devastating loss can heighten the senses. Fizzing electro, hazy shoegaze, funk basslines, electronica and even an 80s pop sax solo blend together into a bittersweet, happy-sad soundtrack.
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Jul 14, 2017She reveals a heretofore-unheard level of ambition as she expands her pop palette and worldview. In trying to put a wall between herself and her audience, she's opened a new, far more revealing side to her music and herself.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 47 out of 56
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Mixed: 6 out of 56
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Negative: 3 out of 56
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Jul 18, 2017
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Aug 2, 2017
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Apr 17, 2023michelle has an amazing voice. jb is one of the few artists i've listened to all their work, but i always come back to ssfap.