Dean: Soda Blonde embrace the melancholy

Is there still a place in the world for Soda Blonde? Warm-blooded indie has become anachronistic to the point where it’s very difficult to envision even a band as beloved as The National emerging through the murk in 2025. Too comforting on the ear for a cursed Earth, I suppose.

Soda Blonde make music that can be played on daytime radio with no objections, their songs spilling out of speakers to soothe the stress of traffic jams. It might not inspire cultish dedication – I’m not sure there are too many kids scrawling “Soda Blonde saved my life” on their school copybooks – but it is in the spirit of well-liked Irish soft rock and pop acts such as Cathy Davey and The Walls. For many people, that’s enough.

They’re also in the tradition of projects that have risen from the ashes of previously successful bands. Soda Blonde’s line-up consists of exactly four-fifths of Little Green Cars, a group that fossilised in 2019. Following the split, singer Faye O’Rourke, guitarist Adam O’Regan, bass player Donagh Seaver O’Leary, and drummer Dylan Lynch reformed under the fresh moniker (Steve Appleby is the missing Little Green Car). There’s been no radical departure from the past – many Soda Blonde songs retain the memorable melodies and a sense of forward propulsion that feels tailored for outdoor summer gigs. But the current formula is a little smoother, the guitars cleaner, everything more serene. The consequences of getting older, some might say.

The Dublin band’s latest release is People Pleaser, a five-song EP. Once more, it’s a pleasant listen – the work or a finely tuned set of musicians working comfortably in the pocket. But on closer inspection, the lyrics are tinted with a deep sense of melancholy. “It isn’t really ok,” are the first words heard on the opener and title track, a sad elegy of that urge some individuals have to please others, even if it’s to the detriment of their own wellbeing. “It’s a kind of disease,” laments O’Rourke.

Fear and sorrow remain the dominant emotions on what are otherwise easy, breezy compositions. “Will I regret what I won’t do just as much as I will do?” O’Rourke sings over the tidy “The Queen is Mercy”, suggesting a feeling of helplessness.

The final two tracks, the mystic “Words” and power ballad-influenced “Live and Let Down”, are more slow-moving numbers, setting a tone more appropriate for the subject matter of People Pleaser. For the most part, though, it’s the juxtaposition of Soda Blonde’s harmonious play and sense of dread in the writing that makes the EP an intriguing addition to their body of work.

There can be no questioning Danny Groenland’s taste or principles. Right from his first album, Love Joints, released in 2014 under the name Danny G and the Major 7ths, this student of Baduizm has sought to create pop-R&B and neo-soul tunes that bump softly and flow like liquid gold.

The singer’s third album, Burning Rome, which dropped in April on Bandcamp and vinyl, is an ambitious ultralight beam of funky drums and retro grooves. As ever, Groenland is enjoyably unapologetic about his sentimentality for classic hits: I hear the spirit of Lionel Richie blessing “Work Out”; “World Outside” somehow invites Brian Wilson and Walt Disney to the same party. Though not a powerhouse vocalist, the zoot-suit cool Groenland nonetheless elicits an endearing blue-eyed soul.

There are forays into the further ends of his vinyl collection. I’m partial to the subtle afro-pop rhythms and 1980s art-pop production of “This World is Changing”, while “Runway” – a duet with Senita, formerly of Shookrah – weaves in some beeping laptop electronica. There are times when a little smouldering grit could be added to Groenland’s harmonic sheen – a sense of air and space can occasionally be felt around certain instruments. Nonetheless, his instrumentals are fluent, thick and ambitious, supporting the singer’s knack for rich, resonant melodies.

Just as admirable are Groenland’s politics. Most tracks on Burning Rome tackle a large theme: the happy-go-lucky horns of the incredibly catchy “Chip In” propel an environmentalist message; chants of “Free, free, Palestine” open the snappy funk of “Olive Trees”. “These songs come from a variety of feelings,” Groenland has said. “Love, anger, empathy, sorrow, fear and hope. I do have hope, otherwise I wouldn’t have recorded it. I have faith in humanity. We’ve been conditioned to think that things like poverty and war are normal and will always be. It doesn’t have to go like this.”

In an age when people are discouraged from fighting for freedom, humanity and a better world – when caring about anything invites ghouls to dismiss you as some kind of virtue-signalling social-justice warrior – it’s heartening to witness an artist put his activist spirit front and centre of his musical identity.