Soft Tissue

Album review

Few bands achieve, and even fewer thrive with, Tindersticks' remarkable consistency. Across fourteen studio albums, plus soundtracks, live albums, and solo albums by vocalist Stuart A. Staples, the group's basic, still-excellent, formula remains unchanged. Even a significant lineup shift before 2008's The Hungry Saw, with the departure of three original members, brought only modest changes. Fans and critics discuss subtle variations almost in shorthand, and give life to each new branch from the recognizable underlying style. For example, 1999's Simple Pleasure added soulful undercurrents, which Wikipedia hyperbolically calls "a major departure."

Across three decades, unchanging key elements have defined the group's characteristic style. Staples's resonant baritone stands in the foreground and conveys the lyrics' vulnerable tales. Most songs have a structure derived from rock and folk, with deadpan verses contrasting with more overt melodies in the choruses. Guitars and keyboards outline the songs' chord foundations, and they rest on a muted but still propulsive rhythm section. String and horn arrangements boost each song's emotional current without entering the foreground.

The most obvious recent evolution is the use of drum machines in addition to Tindersticks' traditional acoustic percussion. On 2021's Distractions, the programmed percussion moved to the foreground to emphasize each song's unique palette but on Soft Tissue it resides further in the background. Despite the atypical timbral palette, this lower volume brings the mixes closer to a classic Tindersticks sound. Live percussion is now processed in drastic ways, on songs like "Don't Walk, Run," to resemble and blend with synthetic beats that sound like the earliest and most primitive drum machines.

Where strings and horns in a classic Tindersticks mix emphasize their organic quality, these parts also receive more daring processing on Soft Tissue. The strings on "The Secret of Breathing" are compressed until minimal dynamics remain, and equalized to remove their rich overtones. While played by talented professionals on beautiful instruments, the horns on "Always a Stranger" sound toylike in the mix.

Soft Tissue extends Tindersticks' familiar and beloved sound by further exploring the timbral innovations of Distractions but this time in a context instantly familiar to the band's loyal fans. © Steve Silverstein/Qobuz