Soft Play radiate heart and wit on Heavy Jelly

When the Royal Tunbridge Wells duo, then known as Slaves, first emerged as a shocking verbal assault on culture and society with 2015’s Are You Satisfied? the abrasion was met with mixed reviews, but undoubtedly tapped into something in demand – raging against the local machine.

Following a pause after their third outing, 2018’s Acts of Fear and Love (and a 2019 EP), which found guitarist Laurie Vincent embarking on a side-project (Larry Pink The Human, with producer Jolyon Thomas) and vocalist/percussionist Isaac Holman’s brief solo outing as Baby Dave after reckoning with his mental health, in 2022 they officially changed their name to Soft Play due to the original name’s nefarious connotations.

Happily, this new start feels fresh. HEAVY JELLY could be the ravishing debut from some doe-eyed newcomers with the visceral energy they’re touting this time around, except therein lies a hardened exterior. Returning single “Punk’s Dead” chucks the Mento of their career trajectory from Slaves into Soft Play with on-the-nose reactions from fans (and an appearance from Actual Brit Royalty Robbie Williams) into the Coke of vibrantly spiky music.

There’s still that sardonic wit aplenty (“Bin Juice Disaster”, “Worms On Tarmac”, “Working Title”) propelled by the unwieldy percussion of Holman and studiously raucous riffs of Vincent. Never relying on anything more than pure aggression and a simple setup, Soft Play have honed in on the key parts of their formula, fine-tuning their silliness with honest exasperation (“Act Violently”).

HEAVY JELLY is bookended by a sense of totality (“All Things”, “Everything and Nothing”) because that’s what life is. But it’s the latter of the tracks that offers up a glimpse of Soft Play’s interior lives, removing the unscalable walls and neatly bringing together the duo's emotional journey over the last few years. The album closer is heartfelt in the most devastating way – it feels real. You embody the crack of Holman’s voice as he asks “What you doing for dinner? / I made enough for two” as Vincent makes his mandolin gently weep. Later in the track comes the striking couplet, “Amongst the devastation / I feel love” which is what the core of Soft Play has always felt like. Within the aggressions and tempers comes an unduly need to care, and it’s why they should be cherished as such.