In the footsteps of last year’s critically acclaimed EP “What’s-Her-Face” EP, the alternative rock band The Soap Boxers, bounce back with a brand new single “Sleepwalker” (ft. Jaimee Harris). And this is joyous, gorgeous piano-driven pop. And we’re not talking about the bubble-head pop spewed on the radio currently. This is the real thing. There is nothing better than listening to a song by a bunch of gifted artists who obviously love what they’re doing. You can hear that in every beautiful melodic bar on this effort. Nothing can match the exhilarated feeling you’ll get when you turn up this song loud on your car stereo, and zoom off down the road. Intelligent, poetic lyrics, wonderfully understated, upbeat, intimate voice combined with easy breezy piano playing. This is hardly what I expected from The Soap Boxers, but it is simply divine.
With razor sharp wit to go along with engaging music-making, you’ll hop on the bandwagon, and discover The Soap Boxers, learning theirs is a major talent like all of their fans already know. They kick against all the grand illusion that life feeds us, with compassion and conviction, and the songwriting is simply genius while doing this.
The Soap Boxes have an axe to grind, a culture to study, and characters to scrutinize. They have an edge, is what I’m getting to, and that’s part of what makes their music so refreshing.
This is a very listenable single, even if you have already banked your own personal fires and aren’t fighting any kind of demons anymore. The music here is swell, and the players are gifted interpreters of their own lyrics. It makes me wonder, even spellbound, how The Soap Boxers are capable of combining an outlook of humor, cynicism and compassion all at once in this track, and all the while the piano playing demands your ear just to pull you in.
“Sleepwalker” (ft. Jaimee Harris) sounds like a lot of fun on the surface but whoever said that piano playing is for wusses has never heard The Soap Boxers – this is ear-candy mixed with full-on intellectual pleasure. The genius thing is, the music is pop, while the lyrics and narrative are definitely alt-rock.
So when the little label at the top of the song says, alternative rock, don’t be fooled by the shimmering piano keys, this is the real deal. The Soap Boxers could so easily have strummed a couple of crunchy electric guitars for the desired effect. But they went a different route.
They put the guitars in the background here, and put the edge into the lyrics. Take the artistic vision, and song arrangements of Ben Folds and then add the sheer pop vision of Todd Rundgren, for a slight indication of where this song may be coming from.
The Soap Boxers have done everything right that they possibly could, on this single, and more. Well played, sung with gusto, laced with smooth melody and edgy pathos, it is just plain brilliant. The way things are going, I bet my bottom dollar that their best work is still to come.
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