Farewell, Slaves. Hiya, SOFT PLAY. A new moniker and a fresh era, the duo – Isaac Holman and Laurie Vincent – have reacted to the shift by doubling down. Debut album (or their fourth collectively, whichever method you depend it) ‘HEAVY JELLY’ is wilder, quicker, heavier, extra frenetic, and downright hilarious that something they’ve achieved collectively earlier than. Each cartoonish and excessive, it’s a cycle of songs which can be each heavy obligation and totally ridiculous.
Opener ‘All Issues’ locations the needle firmly to the purple, with its gleefully tongue-in-cheek sonic avalanche. That’s just about the place issues keep for the (transient) period: wild, muscular, and infectiously foolish. Take the livid, splenetic ‘Punk’s Lifeless’ – the primary music of the SOFT PLAY period, it addressed the name-change, and – considerably curiously – borrowed from a sure Robbie Williams. Great then, and great now.
The album as a complete, although, has a delightful dexterity to it. ‘Act Violently’ is all math-core spasms and breakneck post-hardcore thrives, whereas the surreal phrase play of ‘Bin Juice Catastrophe’ – “my life is a film / Like Jurassic Park or Armageddon / A catastrophe film…” – is oddly harking back to the Minutemen.
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The truth is, there’s a good argument that SOFT PLAY have in all probability concocted a few of the finest music titles 2024 has to supply. ‘The Mushroom and the Swan’ may sound like a pub within the Cotswolds but it surely kicks like a mule on steroids, whereas the pleasingly prosaic ‘Isaac Is Typing…’ and ‘Working Title’ present SOFT PLAY’s humour at its driest.
‘Mirror Muscular tissues’ is a flamboyant piece of electro-punk that might rival DFA 1969 at their mosh pit inciting finest, whereas finale ‘Every thing And Nothing’ is a terse piece of crusty acoustic punk that appears like a very unhinged Frank Turner.
Primarily the band’s first undertaking collectively since ‘Acts Of Concern And Love’ in 2018, ‘HEAVY JELLY’ appears to wipe the slate clear… after which spit throughout it. A hawk tuah gob of punk excellence, it’s a helter skelter trip that presents a band renewed.
7/10
Phrases: Robin Murray
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