Just a few weeks after announcing details of their new album, HEAVY JELLY, punk duo SOFT PLAY have unveiled a new glimpse of it.
“Everything and Nothing” is a slight departure from the duo's recent releases, including comeback single “Punk's Dead,” “Mirror Muscles” and “Act Violently,” as it is a more passionate and emotional song, inspired in part by the death of a close friend of Isaac Holman's.
“I started writing the lyrics during lockdown when I was feeling pretty down emotionally,” Isaac explains of the bittersweet but ultimately hopeful song. “My best friend Bailey had just died and Laurie had just lost her partner Emma to cancer. It was just one hard thing after another. I came up with a lyric about Bailey but had no idea what to say next so I just left it. Three years later, last year, I went over to Laurie's and she'd just gotten a mandolin. We recorded an instrumental and I remembered I had these lyrics in a note on my phone. Laurie asked me what I was singing about and I was struggling to explain it and I said, 'So it's like everything and nothing'. I made a demo and took it to the studio with the lyrics still unfinished. During that time I kept seeing people who looked like Bailey so the next lyric came to me and the rest started to come.”
The song is accompanied by an equally evocative video directed by the band's visual collaborator Thomas Davis, check it out below.
SOFT PLAY are set to release their first album in six years, HEAVY JELLY, on July 19th, and the duo recently appeared on the cover of DIY's 2024 festival guide. Check out the cover feature here, where they reveal more about the new album.
The band also have a number of live appearances booked over the coming months, including an appearance at this year's Glastonbury Festival – see the full list of upcoming shows below.
June 2024
14 Donington Park, Download Festival
15 Czech Republic, Rock for People
30 Glastonbury Festival
July 2024
11-13 Pohoda Festival, Slovakia
26 Sheffield, Tramline
27 Oxford, Truck Festival
August 2024
02-04 Y NOT? Festival, Derbyshire
09 Boardmasters, Newquay
11. Bloodfest, Milton Keynes
25 Portsmouth, Victory Day