Led by San Francisco, CA-based singer/songwriter Young Lee and featuring a rotating cast of collaborators including members of indie rock bands such as WATERS, Hazel English’s backing band, Doe Eye, There’s Talk, and Elsa y Elmar, The Soonest have released a handful of EPs at traditional recording studios that have won attention both locally and regionally for a layered and moody, 80s post-punk/post-rock leaning sound; in fact, Lee was asked to write the score to the documentary Weaving Shibusa.

Mixed by Greg Francis and mastered by TW Walsh, the project’s recently released full-length debut effort, Doors to the City was recorded in an empty Bay Area church, and the high wooden ceilings helped create the enormous, wall of sound like sound that you’ll hear on Doors to the City’s first single “Start a War,” a single that pairs Lee’s lilting and dramatic vocals with layers upon layers of angular guitar chords, a forceful, motorik-like groove consisting of a sinuous bass line and propulsive drumming, and an anthemic hook. Sonically, the song manages to channel Crocodiles and Heaven Up Here-era Echo and the Bunnymen — including deeply urgent and visual lyrics that describe an uneasy and fraught relationship.