Record of the Week: Powerplant: Grass 7"

Powerplant: Grass 7” (Static Shock Records) London’s Powerplant were eclectic and interesting from the drop, but their last release, 2022’s Stump Soup—an hour-long dungeon synth foray meant to soundtrack a Dungeons and Dragons module the group designed—proved the best approach to any new Powerplant record is to expect the unexpected. While Grass isn’t as out there as Stump Soup, the group remains eclectic and progressive here, returning to a more familiar synth-punk sound, but from moment to moment being as forward-thinking, exciting, and confounding as they’ve ever been. Grass is difficult to describe because it doesn’t sound like anything I’ve heard before, despite working with a familiar palette of guitar / bass / drums / synth / vocals. Much of that is because of the songwriting and arrangement; rather than traditional, repetitive pop arrangements, these tracks sound like they’re built on a shifting foundation, and even when a musical motif repeats, something above or below it has always shifted, casting it in a different light. That sense of instability is apparent not just from part to part, but from track to track as well, as the way the instruments fit together and harmonize with one another floats in unexpected directions, never changing dramatically, but shifting in ways that keep my ear interested, even if I’m often left wondering how we got from point A to point B. But while Powerplant’s music on Grass always sounds unfamiliar and novel, it’s still packed with appealing melodies, textures, and rhythms… they never seem self-consciously experimental, just stylistically nomadic. Grass feels like a puzzle, one I may never figure out, but that I’ll enjoy tinkering with forever.