“Soap” by Stand Atlantic, Tuesday, May 21, 2024































Stand Atlantic formed in 2012 in Sydney, Australia. After gaining a following in the Australian music scene and releasing two demo EPs,  they released their first single “Coffee at Midnight” on international indie label Rude Records in 2017 and then signed with California-based indie label Hopeless Records in 2018. The band formed as a four-piece under the name What It’s Worth with lead vocals by Bonny Fraser, Arthur Ng on lead guitar, David Potter on bass, and Jordan Jansons on drums. Playing the local scenes, the band started touring Australia with American bands, such as State Champs, Cute Is What We Aim For, and New Found Glory.

 

I THINK I LIKE THAT SWEET CINNAMON. Since signing with Hopeless Records, Stand Atlantic has released four albums. The band captures an infectious sound with their brand of pop-punk.  Their second album Pink Elephant was released in 2020 and recorded with Stevie Knight. In later releases, the band experiments with hard rock, but the songs on Pink Elephant follow mostly a pop song structure with hard rock guitars. The band's influences include classic pop-punk blink-182, Australian rockers Silverchair, ‘00s Emo band The Story So Far, The 1975, and pop star Justin Bieber. The band also covered Ariana Grande in their career. Pink Elephant sounds like this music synthesis: the structure of pop, the wittiness of pop-punk, and the aggression of hard rock. Songs like “Jurrasic Park” and the accompanying video highlight the band’s wit. The second track on the album, “Ssh!” is the heaviest. The song “Blurry” is an excellent example of the Knight’s modern-sounding production. It also features Fraser’s raw, gritty lyricism. 


DRAGGING MYSELF TO HELL. “Soap” is the penultimate song on Pink Elephant. Sonically, the song feels like one of the best representative songs on the album, averaging out the dynamics of the album. However, the guitar in the song sounds like a lost ‘90s song. Lead singer Bonny Fraser has said that the song is about vices that people use to fill the void in their lives. Lyrically, though, the metaphor of soap seems to have both positive and negative connotations. On the one hand, “it cleans the wounds” but on the other hand it “Soap in [the speaker’s] mouth . . . filter[s her] our ‘til [she] just feels [her]self just fade away.” The song reminds me of the classic “wash your mouth out with soap” when children say a bad word or are disrespectful to adults. In this case, the speaker talks about filtering her language but takes the metaphor further. Soap ultimately erases her as soap washes away dirt. Then that makes me think about being a teacher and raising children. We certainly don’t want to wash away their personalities, just the bad manners and dirty habits. But we have to be careful not to erase the child. 



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