At their core, Softcult is a band with something to say—and every intention of saying it with their full chest. The Ontario-based sibling duo of Mercedes (she/her) and Phoenix (they/them) Arn-Horn are set to release their highly anticipated debut record, When A Flower Doesn’t Grow, on January 30, 2026.

Today Softcult also shares ‘16/25,’ a fearless song that confronts predatory older men who groom younger women, while exposing the double standards and impossible expectations placed on them by a patriarchal society. “It points out the cognitive dissonance men perpetuate while trying to possess and control younger women,” Mercedes says.

When A Flower Doesn’t Grow is a self-produced, self-recorded, and fiercely independent collection of songs that detail the journey from trauma to rebirth and transformation. Its title comes from a quote by Dutch author, Alexander Den Heijer: “when a flower doesn’t bloom, you fix the environment in which it grows, not the flower.” For Mercedes, those words hit during one of the most pivotal moments of her life: ending a nine-year relationship, coming out as queer, and confronting the cycles of oppression she had been internalizing for years, despite being the one speaking out about empowerment.

“The person I portrayed myself to be on stage was not the same person making the decisions that governed my life,” she explains. “I was root bound. I was disappearing, shrinking, withering away… and I felt ashamed of it.”

As a result, the album is a conceptual work about the various stages of one’s internal metamorphosis; written from the perspective of someone who has been radicalized by trauma, empowered by their own resilience, and who ultimately heals and blossoms into the person they were always meant to be.

When A Flower Doesn’t Grow:

1. Intro
2. Pill To Swallow
3. Naive
4. 16/25
5. She Said, He Said
6. Hurt Me
7. I Held You Like Glass
8. Queen Of Nothing
9. Tired!
10. Not Sorry
11. When A Flower Doesn’t Grow