After the first Soft Targets 7" came this five-song CD EP recorded by Kris Poulin at Electrical Audio in Chicago featuring new drummer Dave Potter. Cover art by Chris Auman.
Soft Targets - Whatever Happened to Soft Targets CD EP
The post-punk Chicago unit—which borrows gracefully from indie-rock royalty like Dinosaur Jr. and Built to Spill—aim high with Whatever Happened to Soft Targets? the group's new EP. Opener "Returning" shoegazes its way through under-mixed vocals and a nice delayed guitar lead, all backed by a fuzzy, distorted guitar progression. "Clearing the Brush (on Brokeback Mountain)"—if you can get past the title—works as a countrified instrumental, jangly and moving-down-the-trail in an assured way. "Crushed" is pure pop, reggae-ish in its guitar parts, and a rock song that could actually benefit from a horn section, if the band had the resources. The next track, "Black Radiance," is bona fide early nineties rock, minor chords and distortion, world-crushing depression, and angst. While the band mixes genres a bit and could probably use a different distortion pedal, there's something very endearing about the closer "I'm Sold," my favorite of the group, should be able to sell you with the lyric "Same shit, different day."—New City
On the new EP Whatever Happened to Soft Targets?, this four-piece just about nails an icy-cool postpunk sound halfway between the Only Ones and Joy Division.—Chicago Reader
Soft Targets' five-song Whatever Happened To Soft Targets? serves up a nice enough guitar-charged garage/grunge /pop with Bunnymen echoes to document the ever-in flux band's sound circa 2006. However, the sole instrumental ("Clearing The Bush") aside, the simplistic lyrics and weak, poorly enunciated vocals sound as if afterthought additions that otherwise undercut the other four songs.—Illinois Entertainer
