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Soft Play: Heavy Jelly review – songs of love, loss and leaking bin bags
The punk-metal duo formerly known as Slaves offer sandpaper vocals, spine-tingling lyrics and sharp satire on their fiery fourth album
Name-checking a late friend – while also seemingly alluding to Vincent’s partner, who died of cancer in 2020 – the pair tangle mundanity with utter desolation (“white knuckles on the counter in the kitchen”) to create a singularly beautiful and arresting portrait of loss. Punk’s Dead, the Kent outfit’s ingeniously arch retort to complaints about their name change – a decision they arrived at after accepting Slaves’ problematic baggage – quotes from internet whingers. Holman is a reliably witty and unexpected lyricist, mining absurd pain from ordinary minutiae – there are songs about leaking bin bags, gym guys (“Mike Tyson meets Rylan”) and a worm marooned on asphalt.
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