Ahead of their UK tour – including a date in Nottingham – we take a look at their recent, Heavy Jelly.
Under a new moniker, isaac and Laurie pick up where they left off.
What the fuck’s with the new name, anyway?
Slaves quintessentially British-boiled punk was a turn up for the books. Walloping out fast, frenetic quirks of life disparity on an upturned bass drum and scratchy guitar strikings was a universal delight to a constantly starved punk audience. Since their departure from the name and its connotations in 2022, the punk duo had thrown out three top UK albums with debut in 2015 Are You Satisifed?, its 2016 follow-up Take Control and third Acts of Fear and Love in 2018. For the boys from Tunbridge Wells, it couldn’t have gone any better.
But following on from multiple mental health breakdowns and Laurie undergoing close heartbreak with his partner dying from cancer in 2020, resulting in the band undergoing an indefinite hiatus and a considerable break from the close friends from talking to each other. Of course, with anything, distance can make the heart grow fonder. And that’s what followed for the boys. It soon became apparent enough that a new chapter was needed to revitalise the want and need for creating hearty music again.
The resulting formation was that of SOFT PLAY. A reincarnation of the heavy and comical was back for the duo, despite the reproach they received for the name – which is all spelled out delightfully on feral howler, Punk’s Dead with a Robbie Williams’ cameo.
Stupendously abrasive and obnoxious in sound, SOFT PLAY‘s Heavy Jelly is more the original stylings of what we’re familiar with – interspersed with a more nu-metal nuance of power that adds a whole new layer of cake to SOFT PLAY’s make up.
The heavy fury of Act Violently, the jocular Worms on Tarmac and the vulnerable beauty of Everything and Nothing make up this record. It’s a top, top album and a superb return to form from a set who need to do it together … or not at all. The magic of the band is undoubtedly both of them, snaking and jiving between cut-throat vocals and juggernaut chords, razor-sharp to penetrate the toughest of skin. Whether it be the duo of yesteryear – marked by The Hunter as a punk staple – to the duo in their new era of equal opportunity, one thing is for sure: these guys rarely miss.
The tour starts in Brighton, before hitting Glasgow’s Barrowland, Nottingham’s Rock City and London’s astute Brixton Academy all in time for Halloween.
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