The second album by an artist is usually tricky, because you’ve had your whole life to get the songs from the first one but then that time evaporates and you have to make a new one, then the doubt arises, continue with the same sound that has defined the first one. Or try to break up with him. In the case of Arlo Parks it can be safely said that he has opted for the first path, a thorny one because if you stay with the same sound then you have to find songs to match your first work and “My Soft Machine” Does not have them. It is simply several steps below his debut, “Collapsed In Sunbeams”.
It’s not that this is a bad record, there’s plenty of evidence of Parks’ compositional talent here, both in some melodies and lyrics, but there’s also, which wasn’t on his debut, bland and generic songs, as if they were created by an Artificial Intelligence programmed to create songs from Arlo Parks. The album, in general, is as unsurprising as the only collaboration with her, the omnipresent Phoebe Bridgers who continues to appear everywhere, all the time, at the same time.
Despite there being nothing up to “Hurt”, “Hope”, “Eugene” o “Black Dog”there are also several songs that make us keep our hopes up in an artist with a clear talent, it is about things like the single “Blades” o “I’m Sorry”, built on a great bass line and a trip-hop point that goes very well with his warm voice.
the songs of “My Soft Machine” they emerge nicely and competently, but not especially memorable. For an album about trauma and mental problems it sounds a bit harmless as if the title could be taken literally, and that is “My Soft Machine” It doesn’t sound like the mythical band of Kevin Ayers and Robert Wyatt but rather like a soft, comfortable and slightly harmless machine.