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Some albums make you work for it. SOFT SIDE, the new record from Rome’s Feldspar, isn’t one of them. Among the punchy guitars, infectious power-pop hooks, and gruff vocals colliding with sweeter melodies, the eight-piece collective prove they know how to write a ridiculously catchy chorus. Across ten tracks, Feldspar finds a way to make hardcore’s raw urgency and pop’s melodic sensibilities work together without either losing its edge. And honestly, when the results are this good, why pick a side?

Following 2024’s Old City, New Ruins, which channelled its frustrations outward, SOFT SIDE turns the focus inward. Grief, compromise, intimacy, and the quiet business of losing yourself while trying to become the person everyone expects you to be all make their way into the record.

“Heart Is a Ghetto” gets things moving with gritty vocals, sweeter melodic lines, and guitars that immediately announce this is a band with absolutely no intention of staying in one lane. The vocal interplay is one of the album’s greatest strengths, with different voices pushing against one another rather than simply lining up for a nice, tidy harmony. It feels communal, occasionally chaotic, and wonderfully human. “Good Kids” follows with muscular riffs and an infectious refrain, while “Family Man” wraps its reflections on growing up and surrendering your ambitions in bright guitars and hooks that have absolutely no business being this catchy given the subject matter.

Then there’s the title track, which throws another handful of ingredients into a crowded mixing bowl. The vocals compete for oxygen as the guitars build into a glorious racket, and somehow it all works. “Sweating On” keeps the pressure up with a drumbeat that sounds like it might require its own medical insurance, before “Unsober” loosens things up with a slacker-rock swagger. “Slow Down” and “Aberdeen” bring more surging guitars and pent-up frustration, proving that Feldspar can write a melody without sacrificing the punch that makes their heavier moments land. There’s a lot happening here, but the band’s refusal to sit still is precisely what makes the album so much fun.

The real heart of SOFT SIDE, though, arrives with “Iron and Velcro.” Its story of someone torn between escaping their hometown and staying for the people they love captures the record’s emotional core without getting bogged down in grand declarations. It’s punchy, sweeping, and just sentimental enough to get you right where it hurts, examining the complicated business of belonging without having to bludgeon anyone over the head with the message.

“Growing Concern” closes things out with one final collision of grit and melody, leaving the impression of a band that has stopped worrying about which parts of itself belong in the room. That feels like the genuine achievement of SOFT SIDE. Rather than treating melody as a concession to pop sensibilities, Feldspar use it to make their frustrations, fears, and affection hit harder. The softer side, it turns out, isn’t necessarily the gentler one.

Overall, spending time with this record is an experience. It’s energetic without being one-dimensional, melodic without becoming overly polished, and emotionally open without losing its bite. Feldspar have made an album that practically begs to be played at max volume, sung back at a stage, and immediately played again. If this is what happens when a hardcore band embraces its softer side, it inspires some curiosity to see what else they’ve got hiding up their sleeves.

Listen to SOFT SIDE below: