Softcult — the twins, Mercedes and Phoenix Arn-Horn, have built a terrarium with their debut release, When A Flower Doesn’t Grow. The walls are made of shoegazey grunge. The soil is grief. Something is trying to bloom, and the whole point is that it won’t.
After the found sound, vibe of “Intro,” “Pill To Swallow” opens like a bruise, slowly, with colour you didn’t ask for. The guitars are hovering, suspended above the mix the way a ceiling fan hovers above a bed where someone has been lying for too long.
By the middle of the record, you begin to suspect the flowers in question are not flowers at all. They are decisions. They are conversations that ended in the wrong room. They are the version of yourself you kept meaning to water. The production — layered, gauze-thick, intimate in the way a letter you were never supposed to read is intimate — makes every lyric feel like it is being sung from slightly behind your ear. It makes tracks like “16/25,” about a May-December romance, hit all the harder. Same with “She Said, He Said,” which brings a riot grrl punk edge.
Petals closed. Seeds intact. Waiting in the darkness of “I Held You Like Glass” with tremendous patience and absolutely no guarantees. When A Flower Doesn’t Grow, much like a flower, it gets more beautiful the longer you sit with it.
