Saturn Return. Soft Plastics

Based on the single 'Darcie' I had expected a totally different album. The alternative rocker cleaned out my proverbial ears. Having reviewed 'My World/Your Girl', the opening song, on these pages in October 2021, I could have expected another kind of album. The mind is not what it once was.

Based on what I'm hearing, sort of anew, is that 'My World/Your Girl' is a great opener. Lana del Rey, Donna Blue and all those acts looking back on the early 1960s adding some reverb or a lot more, have a new act to look out for. Soft Plastics has this form of nostalgic slowcore down to a t. The song sets the mood for Saturn Return, a mood that is revisited a few times but also deviated from. The variation is what makes Saturn Return so interesting.

Expect more alternative rocking, driven by a tight rhythm section, drums and bass is enough to get 'Easy To Forget' going. The song brings me back for over 40 years. A hit like 'So Long' by Fischer Z for example has this same pulse. What Soft Plastics manages to do, is give this tight song a dreampop edge. The added atmosphere changes the outset of 'Easy To Forget' totally, enriches it by a large margin.

Soft Plastics is a trio from Te Whanganui-a-Tara or Wellington, New Zealand. Saturn Return is the band's debut album. A highly anticipated album and not just by me. The singles released over the past one and a half year were all interesting, raising expectations. Drummer Laura Robinson, singer-bassist Sophie Scott-Maunder and guitarist Jonathan Shirley deliver on these expectations.

Saturn Return holds a host of influences. Lana was already mentioned and let me add Angelo Badalamenti's 'Twin Peaks' here, while on the other end of the spectre I hear Veruca Salt's alternative rock, while there's a lot in between you'll find. If the band ever comes to The Netherlands or Belgium, hook up with either Amber Arcades, Donna Blue, Robin Kester or The LVE in Belgium to do a double bill. Soft Plastics uses these inputs to create a world of its own. And a rich musical world it is. Filled with atmospheric music, dreamy, up until that moment the band decides to give the song a kick in the you know where.

'Darcie' is the loudest example of one of those kicks. It proves not to be the ideal album opener, as I wrote a few weeks ago, but it will definitely be the ear-splitting end to the band's live show. What an energy is unleashed, saved by the slowcore and slow dreampop songs that will have preceded it. 'Disembodied' should be the encore. From soft to a sonic storm. Usually that goes down really well.

Saturn Return is a debut album that brings a lot of already familiar musical idioms. With these building blocs Soft Plastics went to work and came out with a set of really nice songs. Nearly each one holds an element that surprises and gives the song another point of view. The album delivers on musical promises made. It's varied but above all, good.

Wout de Natris

You can listen to and buy Saturn Return here:

https://softplasticsband.bandcamp.com/album/saturn-return