To the uninitiated, a band like the Softies can only conjure up images of tender quietude and intimate emotion. Famously, that’s only partially accurate: Rose Melberg and Jen Sbragia certainly dialed back the volume by cutting out bass and drums, but their wielding of two electric guitars while singing crisp harmonies often made them a bit too loud for living room acoustic sets and a bit too quiet for big indie rock showcases. It’s this unconventional approach, inspired by legendary oddballs like Daniel Johnston, and their excitement to embrace vulnerability that led the Softies to become standouts within a budding Pacific Northwest twee-pop scene.
For the duration of this millennium, there’s been a Softies-shaped void that they’d fill once in a blue moon with live performances and even a recent tour with Tony Molina. As exciting as that’s proven, it’s not the same. But that has changed: Melberg and Sbragia, after years of dabbling in other projects and moving up the Pacific coast, the two best friends return on The Bed I Made, a refreshing comeback. The 14 tracks on the album touch on friendship, grief and love with simultaneous wonderment and wisdom—all while avoiding pitfalls often associated with return albums.
The Softies could have drawn from any emotional well. They could have mined their ‘90s experiences for familiar feelings and recast them in the same light they did in the band’s heyday, or they could have approached their subjects with an emphasized newfound wisdom associated with chronological distance from their prior selves. The duo refuses to do either. Melberg and Sbragia approach their emotions with the same curiosity as before, with a fresh appreciation for the depth of friendship and the interplay of disparate feelings. On The Bed I Made, love is grief, growth is sorrow and pride is friendship.
The format is familiar: crystal-clear lyrics, satisfying harmonies and guitar rumblings lift the songs to a dimension that only the Softies can reach together. “Go Back In Time” immediately revives their aesthetic approach with a song that feels like a thesis statement—something coated in nostalgia—but the Softies use the song to lament waning connections, centering longing without assigning too much direction. The Bed I Made is loaded with songs taken from Melberg and Sbargia’s emotional trajectories, broken down into their most fundamental parts and nearly devoid of direct reference. The Softies of the 21st century are all about shared affective experiences; getting to the root of what feelings matter and why helps make them immediately familiar to any listener. In an interview, Melberg identifies “When I Started Loving You” as a song she wrote about loving herself after dissolving Tiger Trap, but she intended for it to resemble all forms of admiration. It’s cheesy, concise and catchy.
The Softies sometimes return to subjects they loved in their youth with a similar flair— Sbragia especially enjoys addressing unrequited love like she does on “Sigh Sigh Sigh.” The duo’s songs can get verbose, rarely to their detriment if ever, but when they hold back and let the harmonies and guitars to the bulk of the talking on “Headphones,” the scant words have maximum impact: “Plug your headphones / Straight into my heart / Listen / Listen / I love you.” Paired with “To You From Me,” the songs are reminiscent of the snail mail days of pre-email indie punk, where fans scoured liners for addresses and enclosed mixtapes with letters for each other. Where there are tinges of nostalgia, there is an appreciation for what has been, what currently is and what could be in the future. There’s no sense dwelling in the past or believing too strongly in your own wisdom when there are so many more ways to grow and days to fill.
Aside from their resolute voices and unadorned emotion, the Softies are best known for explosive guitar creativity that generates the warm, fuzzy feelings associated with twee. Their sway on “I Said What I Said” underscores the song’s declarative power; their complexity on closer “Don’t Fall Apart” builds to one of the most satisfying conclusions you can find in the duo’s discography. Even in 2024, maybe thanks to some tech upgrades, the vocals and the guitars feel even more in-sync than on any prior Softies release. It’s a balance that suits them well: Melberg and Sbragia‘s voices are still full but ethereal, their guitars are pointed but not overwhelming.
Thematically, stylistically and sonically, The Bed I Made feels like an album the Softies were destined to make, one which serves as a brilliant spiritual successor to their cult-beloved discography. For a band that fell into hiatus through the curse of circumstance, it feels rewarding to know that Melberg and Sbragia can return to each other’s side as collaborators—in addition to as friends—without so much as a hiccup. Whether it’s told through grief (“Dial Tone”), relationship termination (“California Highway 99”) or love (“Tiny Flame”), everything on The Bed I Made has a place and is treated with care. Hearing it has been well worth the wait.
Read our recent feature on the Softies here.
Devon Chodzin is a Pittsburgh-based critic and urban planner with bylines at Aquarium Drunkard, Stereogum, Bandcamp Daily and more. He lives on Twitter @bigugly.
