There’s a fine line between wearing your influences proudly and getting buried underneath them. Prism Shores manage to avoid that trap entirely on Softest Attack, a record that pulls from decades of indie guitar pop while still sounding sharp, immediate, and completely alive in its own way.

The Montreal quartet had already started gaining momentum with Out From Underneath in 2025, but this feels like the album where everything properly clicks. Instead of leaning further into haze and atmosphere, Softest Attack pushes melody right to the front, trading some of the band’s earlier shoegaze fog for brighter hooks, louder guitars, and a restless kind of energy that never really settles down.

Bigger hooks, sharper edges

What makes the album work is how densely packed it feels without becoming overwhelming. Scott Munro’s production gives the songs a crunchy, layered sound full of jangling guitars, fuzz, harmonies, and the occasional burst of controlled chaos. Even when the arrangements expand outward, the melodies stay firmly intact.

“Kid Gloves” opens the record with immediate momentum, while “I Didn’t Mean to Change My Mind” leans harder into pure power-pop instinct. Then there’s “Gossamer,” which slowly builds into one of the album’s most satisfying noise explosions, balancing shoegaze texture with a genuinely strong hook underneath it all.

For a band working within such familiar territory, Prism Shores constantly find ways to keep the songs moving.