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Young Mister Releases ‘Soft Rock’ EP: Review

Charleston native Steven Fiore started Young Mister several years back to serve as a creative outlet for his songwriting endeavors. Over the years he has traveled the country, playing shows, picking up new fans, and further developing his knack for songwriting along the way. In 2016 he released a self-titled album that received acclaim from outlets like Popmatters, Consequence of Sound, and AXS, and today he’s back with the aptly-named Soft Rock EP.

Soft Rock contains five new songs that are much more minimalistic in approach than the full-band indie rock heard on the debut album. The dialed-back sound helps to highlight the songwriting that has endeared Young Mister in the eyes of so many listeners. It’s easy-listening at a distance, so you can throw it on early in the morning and wake up slow, but the beauty really shines through when you listen closer. This is introspective music at its finest.

The lead single, “Infinite Space”, was premiered through EARMILK a few weeks back, and shows Steven expressing his thoughts on the possibility of extraterrestrial life. The song was inspired by a podcast on the subject that got the wheels turning, and Steven put his pen to work, giving us a track that represents the despair one might feel when hit with the realization that although we may be sure that aliens do exist, we’ll probably never get to meet them in our lives.

I touch on “Infinite Space” not only because it was the lead single, but also because it literally and figuratively sits at the center of Soft Rock. It represents the quintessential vibe that spans the entire EP: the idea of blending reality with the supernatural and using what you find to gain a new perspective on the world. Steven gives us a concrete piece of music that represents what he found after wrestling with those ideas, allowing us to use it as a reference when searching for a broadened horizon in our own lives.

Young Mister is currently working on another full-length album that will serve as a follow-up to Soft Rock, and as of right now he’s aiming for a 2018 release. All that is taking place at Forty-One Fifteen in Nashville. You can stream Soft Rock below, and below the stream you’ll find his fall 2017 tour dates, which are mostly in Europe.