Soft Pack tour single on Kemado Records

Saw this in an email from Insound, The Soft Pack has a new single out from Kemado Records for the start of their UK tour, this one has a Cure cover of 'Grinding Halt' on the A-Side (check it out at Gimmie Tinnitus blog).
The Cure has been coming up on random a lot lately for me, especially the early stuff, 17 seconds, Three Imaginary Boys...and it's aged amazingly well. It really just gets better and better...maybe it's what certain things have come back around to...Blessure Grave, Blank Dogs...that minimal, synth based, clear songwriting. It's not catchy necessarily, but it's just solid, and always just exactly the right amount of depressing. Sure his voice might be a bit much at times, but they are just plain amazing tracks, even a lesser song like this that I can't even place on an album..was it a single?
The Soft Pack are all those things and they take this minimal bassline foundation and Matty adds his signature vocals, which kind of sound really upbeat here...inappropriately enough...the B-Side Buick Skylark' I couldn't find on anything..maybe from their new album? Can't wait to hear that...I have to preorder from Insound and get this bonus single.

I think what it is about The Cure is I can't trust my 16 year old self, he listened to some terrible things, so I usually immediately discount the Cure as from that era of my angsty high school experience. They have been beaten to death in my subconscious and I can't even think of them objectively anymore. Well....I haven't given them a chance.
For instance hearing their cover, I must have never actually heard the lyrics for Grinding Halt, and it goes right along with Hollywood's disaster armageddon obsession lately. 2012, I am legend, The Road.
'No food, no people. Stop short. Everything's coming to a grinding halt. No sound no people, no clocks, no people.'
That reminds me, I hope they do another season of The Colony, I loved that thing on discovery. Apocolyptic LA with a bunch of random people and have them attacked and fight for resources. A little sick maybe, but it wasn't another cheesy reality show.
I'll admit, I guess I think about that idea. How it would work out in Brooklyn.
Yikes.
I'm sure they would find me curled up in a corner with a pile of singles I can't play anymore rocking back and forth.
Ah geez.
Anyway, pick this up before the world ends and there's no more electricity and you can't listen to it.
How's that for incentive?


Insound says:
VINYL FORMAT. Tracks: "Grinding Halt" b|w "Buick Skylark." The Soft Pack (formerly the Muslims) have a full length coming out on Kemado in early 2010, but for now here is a limited edition tour only 7", hand numbered out of 500. The A-Side is a Cure cover!

The Soft Pack - Nightlfe on Caspian

This import release of 'Nightlife' on The Caspian Label must be to coincide with their tour over in England...so it's about $9...not too bad if the b-side is unreleased...or new material. Needless to say it's been ordered.
Nightlife was always one of my favorites...especially after visiting LA and seeing them out there, it really fit that landscape. Matt's kind of deadpan delivery kills me everytime. 'Got nowhere to go / nothing to show/ so you're looking for some nightlife....let me go'. Just that age old quest for something better than here...something's got to be out there, let me go find it. I don't know that he ever does...the 2 min song just continues on and on day after day. Work and try to have fun, searching for what? It's endless. Soft pack becomes the nightlife by creating something about the lack of it. It's very Johnathan Richman...simple, classic themes, just a little dark in it's lightness.
The 'hey...hey!' at the end with this messed up synth chord is just this kind of admitting failure, this out of tune...it's time to go back to work.

Tom on termbo posted this info this afternoon, and I'm seriously grateful...I would have missed this completely.

The third Caspian label single is a very exciting addition to the series: For a band whose lineup has only really been cemented this year, The Soft Pack – formerly known as the Muslims – have already accomplished a breathtaking amount. Raised in San Diego but currently based in LA, the quartet, which features Matt Lamkin on vocals, co-founder Matty McLoughlin on guitar, David Lantzman on bass and Brian Hill on drums, create a fresh, razor-sharp, no-frills sound that draws in influences from acts as varied as the Stooges, Jonathan Richman, Wire and The Velvet Underground, resulting in fiercely infectious, stripped-down songs
Nightlife is their debut UK release and comes in the same exquisite white on white 7” sleeve, which is part of the series of 7 introductory caspian singles limited to 500 copies each.