Plaka Notes #15: It Was A Moment by SOS

The Filipino indie band somewhat hesitates in what can be a pretty good pop record. But to get to that realization, the reviewer has to get over his own hang-ups.

When I decided to feature It Was A Moment, the latest album from SOS, I found myself reminiscing.

I started the Once Monthly’s predecessor in 2012, and at the time the band, then known as She’s Only Sixteen, had already been around for four years or so. Their relative popularity told me that I was out of my depth when it came to running a music blog. Between all the writing I was doing for an American television website, and the long commutes, I was pretty much out of the loop when it came to Philippine music, especially considering the height of the alternative scene just a few years prior, when I was still in college.

And even then I didn’t really get around to listening to them. I think I was overwhelmed? I also think I was intimidated by the band, like they seemed to have a larger-than-life presence on social media—or maybe it’s their vocalist Roberto Seña and his dry humor. I just knew they were, like, one of the bands I should at least understand if I am to do a good job of covering local music. And still I didn’t get around to it.

I did listen to their first full-length album, 2017’s Whatever That Was. I even reviewed it, but admittedly this was the time when I found myself reviewing a lot of albums for the sake of being complete, so in hindsight I think what I wrote about the record was perfunctory, not so much because I was bored but because I had too much on my plate. “The record is comfortable, easy, guides you without being too pushy,” I wrote. “It’s an effortless record both in construction and sequencing, and in how a noob like me can get it at first try.”

I listened back to it a couple of weeks back to prepare for this month’s Plaka Note and maybe I wasn’t that far off. What stood out for me was how well-constructed the album is—and how it wraps it all up in a slacker-like demeanor that suggests less effort than is actually made. You don’t think much of it until around the second half, at which point you realize how everything has been clicking into place—and now they can up the ante, kind of. I noted on the old review how the final two tracks, “Sweden” and “Magic”, is a satisfying climax, and eight years in, I still feel the same way.

And then the band went quiet. Well, not really. There was an EP, The Other Side, released in 2020, and you know how crazy things were at the time. Sure, perhaps this is also because I had closed the old music blog at this point and stopped keeping tabs on local music. And sure, perhaps it’s also because this was a fully self-released record. Listening back, it does suggest a bit of an escape in those crazy times—a more quiet take on math rock with a bit more swing, especially on the seriously Sunday morning-worthy “Just A Bit Of Rain”—but with the same effortless energy as their earlier work.

Evolution isn’t drastic for the band. Across their discography there is that same vibe. Perhaps their biggest shift happened in 2022, when they dropped their old name and became known as SOS—and you pronounce it as “soss” rather than as an abbreviation—and when they came back with a single performed entirely in Filipino.

I actually didn’t catch this at the time this was released—you’ll have to forgive me; it was the height of the interregnum and I had no bandwidth to listen to anything new. I only really heard it when I listened to It Was A Moment, SOS’ second full-length, and their first release under James Reid’s Careless label. Again, it’s one of those deceptively effortless albums that pulls a surprise in the second half, when you’ve kind of been lulled into complacency until you realize that everything has been clicking in a certain way all this time.

The exact moment things kicked in for me was actually on the track before “Seryoso”, another Filipino track (and the only other one), “Please Lang”. I was streaming the album and was not keeping an eye on the tracklist—I’m certain I was catching up on some writing—and was quite surprised to hear a non-English track. My initial impressions from many years ago stepped forward. The band formerly known as She’s Only Sixteen always had that veneer of cool, so them singing in our vernacular was not something I expected. (I am not saying Filipino is not cool; I am saying you just don’t expect it, considering the whole class divide thing.) I instantly thought of Rivermaya, particularly their mid-2000s heyday when Rico Blanco had become really comfortable with being the solo frontman and the group’s swagger rivaled that of the newcomers at the time. Seriously accessible pop rock. I wasn’t expecting it.

Or should I have?

Having done this for far longer now, I am very much aware of how our reaction to music does not just depend on what genres we like or grew up with, but what our perceptions and moods are at a given moment. SOS is big in their circles, so I most likely approached their music with the idea that I have to be “cool” to get it. It’s a habit I’ve been trying to undo (slowly) when I started the Once Monthly, and of course now I’m also a bit more pop-leaning than I was back in the day, so I’m listening to this record with that in mind… and I feel I appreciate It Was A Moment more as a pop record than as an indie rock record. And I don’t say that to suggest a compromise was made. Everything still feels effortless, but the end output has a bit more of a groove this time around.

And if you’re coming away feeling that I’m overselling the pop aspect, well, let me clear it up. The first half is the slow build-up again, and the second half is when things get wild, but they remain in that sweet spot throughout. The lead single, “Yumi and the Apocalypse”, hews more closely to that math rock territory, a bit of a Foals-lite, for lack of a better term. No need to panic.

I know my hang-ups do get in the way of these album reviews sometimes—and indeed, in how I enjoy my records—but there’s really no use in keeping shtum about it, right? Okay, sure. Let’s say It Was A Moment is a somewhat hesitant pop record, but when it shakes off its hang-ups, it can, and it does, get rolling.

Maybe I should, too.