Artist: Cape Crush
Album: San Souci
Power-pop/emo band, Cape Crush, has released their debut EP, San Souci. The album is available for streaming anywhere you get your music.
The band hails from the North Shore of Massachusetts, and consists of Ali Lipman on guitar and vocals, James Christopher on guitar, Jake Letizia on bass, and Cody Rico on drums.
Of the album, Lipman says, “‘San Souci’ is a collection of six songs named for the neighborhood in South Carolina I lived briefly in my early twenties. San Souci means, ‘without a care,’ in French and I always loved the irony of living somewhere called San Souci while being full of care and worries – hence why the opening track is named, ‘Avec Souci,’ or, ‘with care.’ It’s a mix of older songs and newer songs that were written in response to or as a continuation of the older ones. Each song is a reflection on that time in life when your mistakes feel colossal and irreversible. I feel like the EP as a whole looks back on events from the perspective of someone who has loved, lost, and learned a little about what’s important.”
Lipman continues, “There are themes of homesickness and isolation written into the lyrics – whether it’s phoning your friends back home in ‘Sunny & Boone’ to ask them how their pets are doing, or the description of feeling like a statue in a snow globe in ‘Mother’s Day.’ We also explore themes of addiction and loss in both ‘Avec Souci,’ and ‘Del Water Gap.’ There’s a lot of personal imagery, but these are relatable themes that I hope are as cathartic to listen to as they were to write.”
San Souci consists of six tracks: Avec Souci; San Souci; Sandwich Wars; Sunny & Boone; Mother’s Day; and Del Water Gap.
Cape Crush reminds me of every emo/indie band I listened to in the early 2000’s—Jacks Mannequin, Mayday Parade, Cute Is What We Aim For, Hawthorne Heights, Dashboard Confessional, etc. They also use a lot of personal imagery in their songs (as in, very specific imagery that is significant to the writer but may not click with the listener), which I find to be pretty common in the pop-punk genre but may not be everyone’s cup of tea.
The songs “Avec Souci” and “Del Water Gap” are both extremely powerful, especially for anyone who has watched someone they love struggle with addiction. In “Avec Souci”, this internal struggle is described with beautiful lyrics: “Planning my big escape/Dirt on my hands, my garden planned, so you won’t suspect me/I’ve been thinking about propagation/How I just wanted to cut you out/I made up my mind to leave it behind/To nurture these pines that will lead me home/I can’t go on here”. Similarly, in “Del Water Gap” describes viewing a loved one with an addiction: “It’s criminal, it’s how your mind works/Like you’re weaving gossamer threads/Round a single pain of beveled glass/And once again you’re on my doorstep/Crying into the wind/Begging me to let you in”.
Overall, I really enjoyed San Souci! You can check out Cape Crush yourself on Instagram.
