Rough Trade

“Death in the Family,” the newest offering from Rough Trade’s lightning-in-a-bottle storytelling act, The Sophs, is a Weezer-esque, lyrically dense meditation on accountability and fear—one where the narrator would willingly endure the grief of losing a loved one if it meant earning enough sympathy to be absolved of the hurt they’ve caused. It opens, quite literally, with the lyric: “I need a death in the family / to turn my page”. The Sophs’ latest single is a fuzzed-out, paranoia-laden jam—one as disturbing as it is compelling.

A bold admission of vulnerability and moral failure, delivered over an undeniably head-noddable, fuzzed-out beat, every instrument and lyric on ‘DEATH IN THE FAMILY’ lands like a gut punch. Frontman Ethan Ramon says it’s “one of the most personal songs I’ve ever written. It confronts my complicated relationship with shame, and how, at a certain point, I had convinced myself I’d rather grieve a loved one than take any kind of accountability. Releasing it almost feels like purging those thoughts. Maybe it’s because I finally feel like I’m explaining myself clearly. Maybe I feel protected by my vulnerability. All I know is it means something to me.”

The Sophs’ brutal honesty, flamingly intrusive thoughts, and broad genre-spreading caught the attention of Rough Trade label heads Geoff Travis and Jeannette Lee immediately when they received a demo from Ramon. In the band’s demos they heard the sort of creativity and variety — and “don’t expect me to act pretty” sentiment — that could get The Sophs — including frontman Ethan Ramon, Sam Yuh (keyboards), Austin Parker Jones (electric guitar), Seth Smades (acoustic guitar), Devin Russ (drums), and Cole Bobbitt (bass) — a slot on nearly any stage. “It’s rare that a demo that arrives in the post sets your heart racing and sends you off on a quest to track down its sender. But that’s what happened when we listened to the music sent to us by Ethan Ramon,” Travis and Lee explain.