Soul She Said

Putting their best foot forward from the off, Soul She Said's debut record opens with what is easily its strongest track, "Sunken City." Strongly influenced by My Bloody Valentine, early Primal Scream and probably a whole host of hallucinogens, it's the prefect balance to the Icarus Line's dark back alley, class A take on The Stooges.

Soul She Said is in fact effectively the jam band side project of Joe Cardamone and Don Devore of the more famous Icarus Line. Recorded in the height of summer '05 in Australia and New Zealand, As Templar Nites, is fairly well removed from what the two men are more commonly known for. This is almost a dance record. "Floor on the Floor" is build around some The Rapture style throwback guitars but is unfortunately peppered with a few too many asinine dance commands that only James Brown and perhaps Dance Dance Revolution can get away with. "Riverboat" is a more drawn back, psychedelic offering before "Tastefaker", "Cause, I Can't Find a Place in Hell" and "Rub the Sleep Out" aim to get hips gyrating once again. The album ends with the more sedate stoner jam, "Oct 21", which reinforces the summer feel of the record. Or I'm just reading into it too much. In all it only lasts twenty-five minutes, by which time the effects are starting to wear off. But given that As Templar Nites is a fairly fun trip it's one worth revisiting again when the sun is out.

Oh, and if anyone has ever believed that drugs have a negative effect on people, well, you may be right. See the press release for some shit filled nonsense…

Souls as Templar Nites... Traversing the boundless limits of space and time, these unwilling but unrelenting mercenaries, whose real names and identities have been changed to protect the guilty (powers that be), exist only to the outside world as an innocuously mild-mannered side project, but in reality have greatly impacted the catalysts for change towards this, "the essential fate and truest destiny," or what will eventually come to be known as the final evolutionary link for all mankind. But before we sell you on some Florida swamplands, let's explore what the increasingly reticent members of Souls She Said would describe as "the boring ending".

What? None-the-less, take that scag needle out of your vain and drop some acid. Summer starts here.

6.6 / 10 — Neil