Review Date: June 20, 2025

Soft New Magic Dream -
Black Mother Super Rainbow

Release Date: June 6, 2025

Rating: ★★★★☆

The latest album by one of my favorite groups (fronted by one dude, Tom Fec, who if I understand, writes and records the albums alone and brings along the band mates when touring).

It's hard to overstate the impact that Tom Fec's music has had on me over the years. I found his other project, Tobacco, in high school, and mainly stuck to that stuff through college. After years of playing Maniac Meat and Fucked Up Friends on repeat, I migrated over to Black Moth Super Rainbow, see what it was about. This project's production is softer, dreamier. The songs are often slower and don't emphasize beats like Tobacco does. Older BMSR albums sound a little like a deer finding its feet after being born- naive, but with a strong aesthetic vision that's totally unique. It's a little twee with imagery of standing in fields and weird critters running around in the forest. In later albums his voice is stronger and more developed, and I think peak with Eating Us, Extra Flavor and Cobra Juicy.

I'm listening to Soft New Magic Dream and yeah, it feels like more of the same, comfortingly familiar I should say. I won't speak for Tom, but I'd wager he's aware that his music is for acquired tastes. I don't think there are casual fans of anything he does. I'd bet that although he's not topping charts, there are people out there that really GET it and eat it up. Over 22 years the sound of this project has hit on a similar vein, but for me it always scratches a particular itch, and I can't let it go. Chill, dreamy and yet unsettling, a really intruiging combination. Demon's Glue and The Eyes in Season have been on repeat. I love that their melodies are genuinely catchy, something that could be really popular if borrowed by a more conventional pop artist, but he dirties them up and roughens their edges with vocoders and sounds that could be coming from a dying industrial machine.

Overall I think Tom's music is getting looser, more abrasive, and yet more chill over time. Like I said, there are may familiar albums in this album, but I dig the chiller pace. It's music I want to take a nap in a park to and wake up groggy and sunburt. I think that'd be fitting.🌿

Favorite tracks: All 2 of Us, Demon's Glue, The Eyes in Season.
Not so favorite tracks: Brain Waster, Wet Spot Dare, Sea of Hair.

Review Date: June 20, 2025

Soft New Magic Dream -
Black Mother Super Rainbow

Release Date: June 6, 2025

Rating: ★★★★☆

The latest album by one of my favorite groups (fronted by one dude, Tom Fec, who if I understand, writes and records the albums alone and brings along the band mates when touring).

It's hard to overstate the impact that Tom Fec's music has had on me over the years. I found his other project, Tobacco, in high school, and mainly stuck to that stuff through college. After years of playing Maniac Meat and Fucked Up Friends on repeat, I migrated over to Black Moth Super Rainbow, see what it was about. This project's production is softer, dreamier. The songs are often slower and don't emphasize beats like Tobacco does. Older BMSR albums sound a little like a deer finding its feet after being born- naive, but with a strong aesthetic vision that's totally unique. It's a little twee with imagery of standing in fields and weird critters running around in the forest. In later albums his voice is stronger and more developed, and I think peak with Eating Us, Extra Flavor and Cobra Juicy.

I'm listening to Soft New Magic Dream and yeah, it feels like more of the same, comfortingly familiar I should say. I won't speak for Tom, but I'd wager he's aware that his music is for acquired tastes. I don't think there are casual fans of anything he does. I'd bet that although he's not topping charts, there are people out there that really GET it and eat it up. Over 22 years the sound of this project has hit on a similar vein, but for me it always scratches a particular itch, and I can't let it go. Chill, dreamy and yet unsettling, a really intruiging combination. Demon's Glue and The Eyes in Season have been on repeat. I love that their melodies are genuinely catchy, something that could be really popular if borrowed by a more conventional pop artist, but he dirties them up and roughens their edges with vocoders and sounds that could be coming from a dying industrial machine.

Overall I think Tom's music is getting looser, more abrasive, and yet more chill over time. Like I said, there are may familiar albums in this album, but I dig the chiller pace. It's music I want to take a nap in a park to and wake up groggy and sunburt. I think that'd be fitting.🌿

Favorite tracks: All 2 of Us, Demon's Glue, The Eyes in Season.
Not so favorite tracks: Brain Waster, Wet Spot Dare, Sea of Hair.