GRMLN Soon Away

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About

With Soon Away, GRMLN veers from the pop-punk-rooted road the band started on with last year’s Empire. It’s an aggressive album, darker and heavier than what’s come before. While it carries these characteristics, there is also a certain peace to Soon Away, thanks to songwriter Yoodoo Park’s personal growth.

The album grapples with letting go and getting used to good-byes. “Find a way to be wanted and here for someone else/ Break away from the notion, the poison in my head,” Park sings on the cathartic “Faux.” The singer-guitarist sees the constant changes of life allowing people to embrace the true nature of living. The teachings of Krishna were an inspiration to Park while writing the record and it’s a force that helped define Park’s perspective in these songs. Still, there’s an intensity to these guitar-driven tracks. “Go, but you’re breaking without me/ When days can crawl around/ To waste myself away,” Park sings on opener “Jaded,” which is built around one of GRMLN’s catchiest riffs.

After writing the songs—some in Japan, some while on tour in the U.S.—Park went back to Different Fur Studios in San Francisco with engineers Patrick Brown and Sean Paulson, who worked on Empire. On Soon Away, Park is joined by his brother, Tae San, who assisted with bass parts and some song structures; and longtime drummer Keith Frerichs.

Artist Bio

GRMLN is the musical project of 21-year-old, Yoodoo Park. He was born in Kyoto, Japan and moved to southern California at a young age (though he still goes back to Japan every summer). Yoodoo started playing music at the age of 13 when he was given a bass guitar and has been playing music ever since.

During the summer of 2010, Yoodoo started recording relaxing songs for himself to listen to in his car during lazy summer afternoons. The Explore EP, captures this time in Yoodoo’s life with clean sounding guitar rhythms and a mixture of drowsy melodies. Yoodoo’s 2013 full-length, Empire, was less of a follow-up and more of a departure. Empire’s upbeat rock songs and ‘90s pop-punk influenced sound eventually led to the alternatively stormy and peaceful tunes of Soon Away. The new album is much more aggressive than previous releases—a world away from the dreamy sweetness of Explore. Soon Away reflects on the desires and regrets that come with age and experience. It’s GRMLN’s most mature work yet, and also the band’s catchiest.