Stop us if you’ve heard this one before: if the hype machine is to be believed, The Sophs are the latest contenders for the ever-crowded title of “future of rock music.” It is a category already stuffed with acts like Geese, Turnstile, Fontaines D.C., Kneecap, and Militarie Gun, all routinely presented as the next great hope for guitar music. But no amount of label strategy, management spin, or breathless blog coverage, including from publications not entirely unlike this one, can predetermine that outcome... History tends to make those decisions on its own. Tune out the noise and focus on the evidence at hand, namely their live performances and their debut album Goldstar, and one thing becomes difficult to deny: The Sophs are very, very good. On record, they deliver a twitchy, jittery blend of pop, punk, and soul, full of sharp dynamic shifts and genuinely cathartic crescendos.
One advantage of being this young is that they have not yet succumbed to nostalgia, nor have they established any hierarchy in their influences. Hard rock, alternative rock, country, pop, funk and gypsy punk... all are treated with the same refreshing lack of deference. What matters is the song. But the result is far less chaotic than that description suggests. In fact, by absorbing such disparate strains of music, The Sophs may have stumbled onto a sound of their own, distinctive, occasionally schizophrenic, but consistently compelling. It is a potent mix on record, but live it becomes explosive, largely thanks to the total commitment of the musicians, particularly singer Ethan Ramon, who appears to inhabit every line he sings (or talk/sings) and delivers them with complete conviction.
Because Goldstar barely clears the thirty-five-minute mark, they pad their headlining set with a couple of covers and a healthy number of new or unreleased songs, all of which sound just as strong as the material on the record. The Paris crowd turns out in droves and the club is sold out. As tends to happen with young rock bands, the audience starts dancing almost immediately. The fact that live music can still provoke this kind of visceral reaction from younger audiences, in an era shaped by social media, artificial intelligence, and increasingly automated performances, offers at least some encouragement.
So are The Sophs going to save rock music? That depends on whether rock music actually needs (or even deserves) saving. Are they the future? History can deal with that question later. For now, The Sophs are very much part of its present, and that should be more than enough.
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