Soul Sign have released their fantastic new single, Negative Thoughts, today. The track is taken from the album Desert Fire, set for release on 4 April 2025. Released a full eleven months after their last single, Out Of The Dark – White Room, Negative Thoughts marks a new journey after some challenging months.
White Room is an exciting version of the Cream classic, and the reception to the track was excellent. “We are very happy about it,” bassist and songwriter Bjorn Englen told MetalTalk. “We got a pretty good picture or a vision quickly of what we wanted it to be like. I think the whole band was pretty much on the same page instantly. Me and Mike [Cancino, drummer] especially.”
Negative Thoughts is one of around four tracks from Desert Fire that came to life when Bjorn Englen and Mike Cancino were jamming. “I’m the kind of songwriter where I write as I’m playing, if I have my bass. I press record on my phone and the song kind of writes itself.
“Negative Thoughts was just spontaneous. Well, it wasn’t analyzed. It wasn’t, well, we need this, or we need this section here or whatever. The middle section, the bridge, is very, very unique for a track like that, I think. People are surprised by it.”
Bjorn says that lyrics and writing for Soul Sign music are usually separate processes but happen around the same time period. For Negative Thoughts, Bjorn had lyrics already. “For some reason, the lyrics just seemed to fit. I think it’s a subconscious thing, not a conscious decision. The brain just sort of works that way.”
For the album, there were five or six songs that did not have lyrics. “I hadn’t listened to any of the tracks in a while,” Bjorn says, “and I was sitting on a plane from New Jersey to Las Vegas. I ordered a shot of bourbon or a scotch and a coffee. I was inspired. So I took a napkin and I started writing. I think I wrote lyrics to six of the songs in two hours. It was just like a fountain.
“When you turn the fountain on, you just gotta let it go because if you stop and you start analyzing stuff, it stops. I knew what the song was gonna be about. This is a funny thing. I couldn’t remember what any of these tracks, consciously, what the arrangement was. I wrote the lyrics, and I came home. I sat down in the studio and pulled up the tracks.
“I checked the lyrics to make some vocal melodies and it all fit perfectly. I don’t think there’s anything that didn’t fit. Man, the subconscious mind somehow has a very strange way of working in the background, doesn’t it?”
For Negative Thoughts, and across the Soul Sign album Desert Fire, the guitar of Rob Math is just sublime. When the song kicks off, there is almost a ZZ top blues intro to it. Then Mark Boals comes in, and when he starts singing it made me think of summer.
Bjorn says Rob is spontaneous. “He is unique. He’s got very good knowledge, but every lick is different. He doesn’t play the same lick over and over. Everything is different. He has a way of combining all that fretboard knowledge with emotional stuff.”
When tracking guitar, Bjorn says he just lets Rob play. “I might tell him, think like this or do something along these lines. But I don’t like to interrupt him. I would rather do five takes in a row, let him play and then we take the best one.”
Negative Thoughts is a great example of how Rob builds his guitar through the song. You can hear a sublime mix of disparate but wonderfully matching guitar parts in the left ear, right ear and middle of your head. As for Mark Boals, when he comes in out of the guitar solo, his pitch is just moving.
“Mark is phenomenal,” Bjorn says. “What can I say? It is rare that any male singer past 40 get keeps getting better. His voice is better than ever. That’s what I like about him. He delivers everything musically, tonality-wise and dynamically really well. I can’t say that about every hard rock or Metal singer. He is just outstanding.”
Soul Sign will continue rehearsals in April. Dates across North and South California will be confirmed soon, with shows further afield in the pipeline.
Soul Sign – Desert Fire will be released on 4 April 2025, and MetalTalk will have more news about this. For pre-orders and to find out more, visit SoulSignBand.com.
