Soft Play – Heavy Jelly: Review

Humour has always been Soft Play’s core ingredient, and tragedy has not dulled their keen sense of it.

Life is cruel.

As touring commitments concluded for the artists formerly known as Slaves back in 2019, the two-man band were falling apart, barely able to even speak to one another despite playing to their largest-ever audiences.

It was agreed that a break was required, before real life intervened.

As well as the pandemic, Isaac Holman was thrown into a mental health crisis (suffering from two separate forms of OCD), while the mother of Laurie Vincent’s children sadly passed away after a cancer diagnosis.

Both needed time to heal and pursued solo projects: Holman channelled his vulnerabilities into two fragile albums under the moniker Baby Dave, while Vincent expanded his sonic palette via the Larry Pink The Human project.

After being sounded out about supporting Blur at their Wembley shows last summer, the duo reconvened and agreed that the relationship – and the band – was salvageable.

Conscious of society’s evolution, their problematic (particularly in America) name was soon changed to the more (literally) family-friendly Soft Play which, in turn, inspired their comeback single Punk’s Dead.

Taken from a series of comments on their social media pages after the new name was announced (‘I don’t like change’…’You should’ve run it by me first’), the track was a riotous return, all cyclone guitars and guttural vocals, with the inclusion of Robbie Williams singing the middle-eight an additional two fingers to the critics.

It also validated their thought process to follow their gut instinct. Barring the closing track, Punk’s Dead is the most effective track on Heavy Jelly, yet that’s more a reflection of the strength of the song as opposed to what surrounds it.

Opener All Things misleads the listener, opening with a choir singing All Things Bright And Beautiful before it rips open with a characteristically marauding riff, typically uneasy on the ear.

Humour has always been Soft Play’s core ingredient, and tragedy has not dulled their keen sense of it.

The Korn-inspired Act Violently is a diatribe against e-scooters (something that many of us can relate to, environmental benefits notwithstanding) while on John Wick the lyrics are written from the perspective of the franchise’s lead character (‘He killed my fucking dog’). Fittingly, it’s a raging, almost unhinged vocal performance from Holman.

During his rehabilitation, the singer took to gardening as a form of therapy, which seemingly inspired Worms On Tarmac, although the concrete riffs could only come from his bandmate.

Equally, the story behind Bin Juice Disaster is not difficult to interpret, while Isaac Is Typing… takes the anxiety social media causes to task (‘Three little dots at the top of the screen, it’s called an ellipsis, you know what that means?).

However, the undeniable irony which underpins most of their work does appear to be lost on some.

Recent single Mirror Muscles takes shots at narcissistic gym goers, but during their recent Glastonbury set many young men were eager to be caught on camera singing the words and flexing their own arms. Did they get the joke? Possibly not, but all are welcome in Soft Play’s world.

After the wit, the irony and the rock, the last track turns everything on its head. Equal parts heart-swelling and breaking, Everything And Nothing is Soft Play’s most disarmingly honest track to date.

Written in tribute to Holman’s friend Bailey (who passed away), it’s hard not to assume there is more to it given the duo’s recent tragedies.

Some truly gut-wrenching lyrics (‘White knuckles on the counter in the kitchen, they don’t know how hard I’m kicking to keep my head above’) accompany a mandolin, gracefully throbbing drums and even a violin.

Unlike anything they’ve ever done, it displays a new dimension to Vincent and Holman that could signal a new direction, although it’s hard to see how lightning could strike twice.

Not that they ever did but on Heavy Jelly, Soft Play have stopped giving the remotest of shits and are even more effective for it.