If anyone was poised to profit from the Mumford-ization of pop, it was Damien Rice, the Irish troubadour whose bleeding-heart folk ballads became inescapable at open mic nights worldwide. (Baristas ...

In press kits, interviews, and fanatical web reviews, Soft's diligence gets played up nearly to the point of self-mythologizing. As the legend goes, they formed back in 2003, holed themselves up in a ...