Brandon Snipes is an american artist and musician from Tennessee, currently living and based in Birmingham, Alabama, who’s already released countless singles, EPs and one full album since 2015. He is presently promoting his FRESHLY RELEASED second album, Soft Light at the End of the World, and it marks a turn on his prolific career.
Snipes have already proven to be a very creative songwriter and producer, venturing into several different styles of music over the past decade. The artist cites both indie rock classics like The Strokes and The Killers, as well as folk and americana singers John Prine and Townes Van Zandt as main influences and it comes across as an incredibly dynamic and personal sound that somehow manages to blend all of it into seamless melodies. On his brand-new album, Snipes goes the indie folk route backed by gorgeous harmonies, string arrangements and deeply personal lyricism.
“This album was written and recorded during a period of deep personal turmoil. Within a couple of years, both my wife and daughter were diagnosed with epilepsy and my wife had brain surgery”, the artist says about the work. Soft Light at the End of the World was also inspired by his work as a mental health therapist, an incredibly personal topic for the artist, who’s also gone through metal health issues during his life. The result is an album that sounds and feels intimate and special as he turns the struggles and hard times into beautiful art.
An indie folk album at heart, the lyrical themes evoke tremendous storytelling and narratives that tackle on relationships and heartbreak, hope and the ability to move on, as well as religion, depression, patience and, as the artist himself points out, personal apocalypse. Snipes does it all with immense heart and empathy, never once losing touch with the fragile humanity that he boldly sings about.
The album’s emotional centrefold is found on the song “Birds”, a portrait of doubt in the face of change, written by Snipes as he was finishing graduate school for counseling and struggling with the decision to give up a ten-year teaching career to become a therapist. The song is light and airy, with impeccable orchestrations and an aggressively hopeful underlining, that comes to the surface in the form gorgeous vocal performances. Snipes also mentions reading fantasy novels like The Chronicles of Narnia and how it helped him reconnect spiritually with both religion and the physical world around him, at what he describes as being at his lowest mentally.
Another absolute highlight is the soft “We Grew Up in a Hurry”, accompanied by a beautiful lyric video, that takes on life and the passage of time. The concept is illustrated in the video via portraits of the mundane, of regular people living their lives and going about things in melancholic fashion, as a great metaphor for struggling with depression and other mental health issues.
Such themes are recurrent across the twelve tracks that make the record, always bringing light and relying on the possibility of positive perspectives, even when they seem dire. Soft Light is backed by a brilliant production that feels dynamic as it knows exactly when to focus on simple acoustic guitars and vocals, and also when to expand into a fuller and richer sound that would make Conor Oberst proud.
Soft Light at the End of the World stands tall as Snipes’s most intricate and best work to date, constantly reaching for balance – be it either sonically or thematically. Snipes writes heartfelt songs that struggle to find a place between illness and health, dark and light, death and life. He does it all with immense hope for a better tomorrow, never shying away from the difficulties but rather using them as a tool to build something lighter and brighter; and he ultimately succeeds.
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Snipes writes heartfelt songs that struggle to find a place between illness and health, dark and light, death and life. He does it all with immense hope for a better tomorrow, never shying away from the difficulties but rather using them as a tool to build something lighter… pic.twitter.com/g1xDsyW1KP
— Jpgchief (@Jpgchief) July 3, 2024
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the center didn’t hold