I generally avoid angry bands. You know, the kinds of bands who play aggro music and feature a bellowing apoplectic who’s all up in my face, going on about this, that, and the other thing. But. Should the words coming out of said bellowing apoplectic make me laugh, all bets are off. I’ll forgive a funny geezer anything, even his beet-red apoplexy.
Such is the case with England’s very aggro punk duo Soft Play, who are one of those rare successful bands who changed their name (until 2022 they went by Slaves, a name they ultimately found troubling in its connotations) in mid-career. The name change angered many of their fans, and on one of the best songs (“Punk’s Dead”) on their new name debut, 2024’s Heavy Jelly, congenitally apoplectic vocalist Isaac Holman takes great delight in channeling all of the abuse heaped upon Soft Play by the myriad fans deriding them as “snowflakes” and “soft babies” for changing their name. “Soft Play? More like soft cunts!” he shouts at one point. And Robbie Williams joins in the fun!
Holman and multi-instrumentalist Laurie Vincent formed Slaves in Royal Tunbridge Wells in 2012, and were critical darlings and commercially successful from the get-go. Heavy Jelly is their fourth album and a near-chart topper despite the new name, which the band more or less predicted in “Punk’s Dead” with the words “Snowflake, snowflake, cherries on the woke cake/But I’ll still see you at your show.” Soft Play is a very odd choice of a name for this band, no shit. But they’ve pulled it off, the soft bastards.
It’s hard to overstate the sheer aggression of this band. Holman doesn’t even stop bellowing on the shockingly pretty mandolin-strummer “Everything and Nothing,” a tribute to a dead friend. Soft Play are ravers and ragers, and like to keep things loud, hard, and fast. Nothing special there, but Holman’s sense of humor gives them a decided boost in the Great Punk Rock Sweepstakes. Were he a lout with an irony deficiency who spends all his time trashing his girlfriend, I’d have no time for this band. Instead, he spends an entire song (“Bin Juice Disaster”) turning an accident in his kitchen into high drama, and it’s hilarious.
Opener “All Things” begins with a choir singing “All Things Great and Small,” then Holman comes in with a grunt, and the music does this cool bump and grind stop and start as Holman sings,
“I’m the nicest dickhead you’ve ever met
Selfish and thoughtful
Selflessly awful
I’m all things
I’m the sweetest empath until I’m not
Violent pacifist
Fascistic anarchist
I’m all things.”
And the kicker—so are you! There’s also this cool chorus that features Holman spitting out “Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na” exactly eight times in a rapid-fire manner. It’s not the best song on the album by any means, but it works.
“Punk’s Dead” is a sonic blast of self-abuse, with Soft Play echoing all the nasty shit thrown their way by angry fans:
“This shit isn’t cool
I’m done with it all
Are there any real men left in Britain?
I’m starting to think that there isn’t.”
And that’s one of the kinder things said. “Johnny Rotten is turning in his bed/I was gonna say grave, but the fucker ain’t dead!” shouts Holman, and the constant refrain goes:
“I don’t like change!
Punk’s dead, pushing up daisies
Come and get a load of these PC babies
Why can’t you just stay the same?
Punk’s dead, pushing up daisies
Come and get a load of this shit!”
Holman speed raps his way through the herky-jerky “Act Violently,” on which he finds fault with every geezer on the public streets, tossing off lines like “If I wasn’t such a loving bloke, I’d kick your fuckin’ head into the road, cunt,” but it’s all in his head, all in his head. “Hey, I’m walking here!” is his constant refrain, that and a repeated “You make me want to act violently!” “Steppin’ off the bus and there you are,” he shouts, “Get that fuckin’ scooter off the path!” like an old man shouting “Get off of my lawn!”
On the driving and bass-heavy “Bin Container Disaster,” Holman turns a spill of an overfilled trash bin in the kitchen into an Irwin Allen disaster movie:
“My life is a movie
(Bin juice disaster, what a palaver)
Like Jurassic Park or Armageddon
(Bin juice disaster, daytime drama)
A disaster movie
(Bin juice disaster, what a palaver)
Like 2012 or I Am Legend.”
with Vincent intoning the lines in parentheses in a broadcaster’s voice. It’s all self-accusation, with Holman crying,
“My 30 litre pedal bin was filled more than it should have been
Why did I keep pushing it down?
Now I’m barefoot paddling
And it smells like shit in my kitchen
Why didn’t I just take it out?
Fuck.”
Not since the golden days of Killdozer has a band made so much over so little, and made it so funny.
“Isaac Is Typing…” is an autobiographical number about undergoing therapy and does absolutely nothing for me. “John Wick” is a hard-driving and hilarious screamfest that opens with the lines
“I tried to retire, then you set my house on fire
And you killed my dog
You killed my fucking dog
I’m John Wick, bitch
And I’m angry
Give me a pencil, give me a book
You can get your fucking whole life took
I’m John Wick, bitch
And I’m angry!”
With a chorus that goes, “I’m John Wick, bitch, and I’m angry!” how can you go wrong?
“Mirror Muscles” is a steroid-jacked and ironic paean to pumping iron with a chorus that goes
“I been working on my mirror muscles
See these puppies bursting out of my sleeves
I been working on my mirror muscles
I see you looking, come and give them a squeeze.”
Followed by Vincent repeating “The pump, the pump, the pump, the pump.” A very bulked-up Holman lets us know his workout routine (Monday back and bi’s, Tuesday chest and tri’s/Wednesday I’m hitting them legs”), that is when he isn’t mocking 98-pound weaklings or crowing about his own monstrous physique:
“Make the ground shake, make the room go silent
Arms like legs, turning heads
Greek God, no trident.”
“Working Title” is about living the high life, or trying to, because frankly you haven’t the means: “Champagne lifestyle, lemonade money/Everyone’s laughing, but it’s not funny.” The bass is bigger than Jesus, the guitar’s fuzzier than the shittiest TV reception, and Holman has his man of means by no means saying, “Guys I know you’re in there/Please can I have one more?” and “Licking baggies in the stairwell of the multi-storey carpark.” The bottom line is that the high life is for high earners, people.
On the metallic “Worms on Tarmac” Holman’s a rapping worm who knows he’s superior to mankind (“I was doing my thing when you apes were just little fishes/I was doing my thing before the dinosaurs existed”) who’s pissed because humankind has built cities where worms don’t have a rat’s chance, and what’s more won’t even help a guy out (“I get stranded, and none of you fuckers think to lend a helping hand/Pick me up, drop me on some soggy land”) and there are menaces everywhere (“Shit, here comes a dog/I think he’s seen me/Oh my god”).
“The Mushroom and the Swan” is a frantic slab of angry therapy rock on which Holman plays patient and Vincent plays therapist and it’s weird indeed, what with Holman continually screaming “He said, he said” to which Vincent responds with such platitudes as “Let’s get to the root cause of the problem,” all of it culminating with the lines
“We got a good thing going on
What?
Said the mushroom to the swan
What the fuck are you talking about mate?
I need you and you need me
You’re freaking me out
Tell me I’m wrong.”
And
“He said, he said
Nothing ’cause I wouldn’t shut the fuck up!!”
Closer “Everything and Nothing” is a real change of pace, what with its lovely uptempo melody and mandolin over which Holman goes screamo, mourning a dead friend with lines like:
“We miss you every day
I see your smile in other peoplе’s faces
Memories and tracеs
I wish you could have stayed.”
The emotion is real, as is the struggle to carry on:
“They don’t know how hard I’m kicking
To keep my head above
Setting sun and a startling murmuration
Amongst the devastation
I feel love.”
Soft Play are a pair of hard cunts making loud music for hard cunts who think Soft Play are soft cunts for changing their name, but Soft Play are the kinds of hard cunts who don’t give a fucking toss what any cunt thinks, and good for them. What’s more, Soft Play are hard cunts who are startlingly self-aware and funny, and proof that I’m not angry-screaming-guy proof, which is nice. A sense of humor, that’s all I ask. Is that too much?
GRADED ON A CURVE:
A-
