Review | Plastic Mermaids at The Wedgewood Rooms in Independent Venue Week: 'Defiantly singular'

The first sound we hear is a sole insistent single drum, like a heartbeat, and vocalist Douglas Richards intoning: 'In a cold sweat, and your love’s stepped, ‘cos you don’t feel, ‘cos you’re not real,' as the rest of the band start playing.
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It's an affecting opening. It's the title song of their new album, It's Not Comfortable to Grow – a concept album of sorts about a break-up.

Expanded from their five regular members, they have two extra musicians joining them for the live show, with people routinely flitting between instruments. Sometimes there are three guitarists, sometimes one of them – Jamie Richards – will be playing his a violin bow. Sometimes there are four of them on keys, or prodding electronic gadgets to produce stuttering digital patterns. Maybe there will be a couple on percussion.

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Douglas and Jamie share vocal duties – the latter's brittle falsetto a stark contrast to his brother's lower register and sometimes vocoder-treated singing.

Plastic Mermaids at The Wedgewood Rooms, Southsea, on January 31, 2023. Picture by Paul WindsorPlastic Mermaids at The Wedgewood Rooms, Southsea, on January 31, 2023. Picture by Paul Windsor
Plastic Mermaids at The Wedgewood Rooms, Southsea, on January 31, 2023. Picture by Paul Windsor

There are pretty piano-led passages. There are stretches which would give those post-rock titans Mogwai a run for their money in the sheer 'wall of sound' stakes. Sometimes they're in the same song. Several of the songs finish so abruptly the audience are caught off guard and there is a very clear moment before the applause begins.

Recent single Disco Wings' lyrical themes are at odds with the robotic funk they're wrapped in. While the near spoken-word Something Better is devastating.

If I have a gripe, it's that they omit the singles from their debut, so there's no Milk, 1996 or I Still Like Kelis. Still, their 2019 debut Suddenly Everyone Explodes is well represented, including Ooh, which couldn't be fitted on the album's vinyl version and makes its welcome live debut here. And 10,000 Violins... with its cathartic build-and-release structure is epic. They also reach back to their pre-album EPs for fan favourites Alaska and Polaroids.

Plastic Mermaids at The Wedgewood Rooms, Southsea, on January 31, 2023. Picture by Paul WindsorPlastic Mermaids at The Wedgewood Rooms, Southsea, on January 31, 2023. Picture by Paul Windsor
Plastic Mermaids at The Wedgewood Rooms, Southsea, on January 31, 2023. Picture by Paul Windsor
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When trying to describe this band it is common to reach for a host of more famous leftfield rock names, but this does them a disservice – they are Plastic Mermaids, defiantly singular and uniformly excellent.

And maybe, just maybe, with the attention their Isle of Wight home is currently getting courtesy of former collaborators Wet Leg's fame, they could catch a much-deserved break.