Soda Blonde

frontwoman Faye O’Rourke says. “Not to tell people what’s right or wrong, but just to be vulnerable and allow them to figure that out for themselves.”

For O’Rourke and her bandmates (guitarist Adam O’Regan, drummer Dylan Lynch, and bassist Donagh Seaver-O’Leary), music has always been a multifaceted pursuit – a source of entertainment, sure, but even more importantly, a vessel of authenticity. The four have been playing in bands together since their teenage years and had nearly ten years under their belt before introducing the world to Soda Blonde in 2019.

Following two successful introductory EPs (2019's “Terrible Hands” and 2020's “Isolation Content”), they released their debut album, “Small Talk”, in 2021. The LP was subsequently nominated for RTÉ’s Choice Music Prize for Album of the Year and received rave reviews from Paste Magazine, Atwood Magazine, and The Irish Times, who called it "a record so articulate and expressive that its title has to be a wry in-joke."

The band have grown tremendously in the two years since their debut, and it shows. Whereas “Small Talk” was an anxiety-fuelled coming-of-age record about navigating their twenties, “Dream Big” is a mature awakening to the world at large; one that dives deeper and hits harder than its predecessor. “It definitely was a conscious titling, that relationship between Small Talk and Dream Big,” the band’s guitarist and producer Adam O’Regan explains. “Small Talk was trying to decipher whether everything meant something or nothing. With Dream Big, we’ve arrived at the point that it means something.”

That revelation comes in the form of eleven smouldering songs full of raw passion, bold sonics, and hard truths. O’Rourke’s achingly emotive, deeply existential songwriting explores the brutality and the fragility of life as she comes to terms with who she is as a person, and where she is at this point in her life.

“To dream big is to just have a basic roof over your head,” O’Rourke says. “It’s a reflection on where we all find ourselves and what people our age are going through. We’re trying to find a home - literally and spiritually. The lethargy, rage and confusion of it all can be exhausting. But we’re inching forward and dreaming of something bigger.”

“Dream Big” is as much a product of self-reflective reckoning as it is one of submission, and both of these experiences are borne out in its songs. The band set the tone on album opener “Midnight Show,” a stunningly cinematic power ballad weighing disillusionment with the music industry on one hand, and the unapologetic pursuit of one’s desires – to the point of prostituting yourself for success – on the other.

“It’s about how things are consumed, and the pressure of having to be social media influencers as well as artists,” O’Rourke explains. “It can sometimes feel like a form of prostitution, all the things that are required of us. I don’t enjoy putting myself out there and exposing myself in those ways; it’s easier for me to express myself one on one or through music. So that has been a journey, asking, ‘What do we have to do to make this work?’ Do we just submit ourselves over to this virtual playground, and not take it personally?”.

The record’s angular and broad-shouldered lead single “Bad Machine” leans into self-acceptance, but it does not do so unilaterally. “We can be slaves to our own impulses,” O’Regan says of the turbulent, sonically charged song. “This idea that ‘every part of me is a bad machine breaking everything all the time, every part of me has been wired to repeat, I’ve got a bad desire by design,’ it’s this idea of recognizing that this is just a part of who you are and going with that; but it’s a double-edged sword. Sometimes taking a chance, being spontaneous and taking a risk - they’re not always the safest moves to make, but that propensity to dare is what makes us great. We wouldn’t exist without it.”

“Dream Big” leaves no stone unturned: “You are so damaged,” O’Rourke sings in “Boys,” channelling inner pain and fracture into a visceral and textured anthem. Our physical (and mental) fragility comes to the forefront on the beautifully bittersweet “An Accident,” a tender ballad balancing tragedy with hope: “An accident can happen at any time, should be glad I’m alive, along for the ride with you,” O’Rourke concludes, opting to look up despite all the negative forces outside of her control.

Meanwhile in “Space Baby,” Soda Blonde breathe fresh energy into a song about love, honesty, and claustrophobia, by quite literally removing the breaths themselves: O’Regan employed a chopped production technique to the track, sucking out all the air to recreate the lyrics’ stifled sensation.

In “Why Die for Danzig,” Soda Blonde revive an anti-WWII slogan, originally written by French Neo- Socialist Marcel Déat, for a song that delves not only into war, but also into how people treat refugees differently depending on where they come from. “People have a propensity towards anger without fully understanding things,” O’Rourke says. “There’s a powerlessness, and people do get off on having a topic of conversation, but how much do they actually care?” There are plenty of moments of redemption and reverie – Soda Blonde’s version of shining a light in the darkness – here as well.

“We’ve really let go of a lot of things probably out of necessity,” O’Rourke reflects. “I’m realizing that in order to survive, I have to make peace with a lot of those things and come to terms with them.” The spirited and soaring anthem “My First Name” is an emotional reclamation of where the

artist is at in her life. “I am subject to my biology but not subject to how the world views me,” she says. “I want to be comfortable in an aging body and to make others comfortable too, even though I’m not there yet.”

“I’ve gone through a lot in terms of my journey as a woman this year, and I think that, for me, there’s an ownership on this record that can be heard. It’s aggressive and self-assured, and I feel it’s an important stance to take – even if it is just bravado.”

O’Rourke’s intensely confessional songwriting and the band’s lifelong friendship come to life in a musical journey full of raw passion, bold sonics, and hard truths. Soda Blonde’s second album goes far beyond their own liberation, exploring a dichotomy between vulnerability and rage that feels especially prescient today.

Ultimately, “Dream Big” is for everyone. “In a world where everything is so disposable, we hope people feel like they own a piece of this album,” O’Rourke shares. “We hope they feel a sense of empowerment, realizing that the journey is a common thing, and we’re all on the same path.”