Indies

Ish Soul Releases Highly Anticipated EP “Love In The Pain Capsule”

By Hardcore Flava | September 27, 2020

Ish Soul is an artist who knows just how to tug at the heart strings of any listener who comes his way.

His brand new project, “The Love in the Pain Capsule,” is a four song, 13-minute diary that explores Soul’s feelings on sorrow, heartbreak and loss. Although dark and moody throughout, Soul never once turns sadness into a performative spectacle, allowing his sincere emotions to speak for themselves.

Lyrically, “The Love in the Pain Capsule” is pensive and revealing.

The opening cut, “Love in the Pain,” sees Soul confronting his internal struggles with past mistakes while trying to forgive himself. While he has no problem wearing his flaws on his sleeve, he is also fighting for what’s his, pouring his heart out to a love interest in an effort to fix their relationship.

“She’s my ride or die, I follow her to our grave,” he croons in the song’s first half.

On “Tomorrow,” which appears later in the project, Soul is fighting for his own mental sanity, expressing a desire to take some time for himself in order to cleanse his mind of everything that has been haunting him. On a project reeking of sorrow and despair, Soul is here to remind us that the fight is in him to create a better life for himself.

While the lyricism stands out on its own, it is also driven forward by the emotion in Soul’s vocal performances. While “The Love in the Pain Capsule” will be regarded by almost everyone as a hip-hop project, make no mistake here: Soul is crooning his heart out throughout the entirety of this EP. His voice almost resembles a cry for help — he is drowning in an ocean of his own grief, and he is yelling out to shore in an effort to capture the ears of anyone standing nearby.

Providing the perfect backdrop for Soul is the production throughout this entire record. If “The Love in the Pain Capsule” shows anything about Soul as an artist, it is that he puts a lot of effort into creating a cohesive sound throughout an entire record.

Although this offering is short, the beats lay out a uniform soundscape that is constantly dreary, aerial and balanced. The synths and pianos are clouded and melancholy, and the trap percussion complements the instrumentation in terms of tempo and feel.

“Lost Soul,” the second track here, starts out with a dreamy guitar riff before cascading into a bouncing bass line and pulsating trap groove. Although the beat is somewhat skeletal, it perfectly sets the stage for Soul’s thick, overdubbed vocals which pierce through without overpowering the other musical elements on this song.

With “The Love in the Pain Capsule,” Ish Soul proves he can find a consistent pocket throughout an entire project. Despite how short it is, Soul is able to create a fully fleshed out artistic statement, which is also accompanied by an equally cohesive set of instrumentals.

Soul pulls no punches when it comes to emotional honesty here. These songs are dark, raw and depressing. However, for Soul in this given moment, these emotions also lay the foundation for a grippling and intimate record — one that will also lay the foundation for what might come for him in the future.