Biography
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Members
- Bryan Styles
Plantman the 2D character is a fictional supervillain from the world of Marvel Comics who, armed with his "vege-ray", is capable of controlling and animating plant life. Whereas Plantman the 3D entity is a three-piece band from Southend, mainly based around singer, songwriter and guitarist Matt Randall, who has no superpowers but can sing in that blank way that indie boys have since Lou Reed, and can play guitar in that iridescent way that only Vini Reilly of Durutti Column can, suggesting the fretboard has been lit up by ghostly plasma – there is even a track on Plantman's forthcoming album Whispering Trees called Vini that we're guessing is named after the Mancunian purveyor of luminous pattern-painting.
So Randall has an alter ego. He also has a past, as a member of indie band Beatglider. And Whispering Trees isn't the first Plantman release, although the previous one, 2010's Closer to the Snow, was a handmade CDR affair, albeit one that sold out of its initial run. But this is Randall's first major statement, and he has hardly stinted with it: there are 15 tracks on Whispering Trees, even if they are, musically speaking, mainly variations on a theme, all trebly guitars that appear to have been dipped in sunlight and wan melodies that appear to have been composed on the cold grey morning after being dumped. Opener Away with the Sun sets the gentle tone – it's sort of country-MOR, or like one of those Americana boys who are invariably called Josh. Stickman filters the monotone delivery of Lou's nihilism through the romanticism of Go-Betweens' Grant McLennan. We couldn't help noticing the drums on this one because they seem to have been played by a five-year-old, not necessarily a criticism. The title track is very Sarah or Shinkansen, those quintessential indie labels of the late-80s and early-90s, from that age when "indie" meant a quiet pursuit of modest musicianly values, ahead of its transformation into the triumphalist brashness of the Roses/Oasis era. Crackles, too, is defiantly un-Oasis-like – if it recalls any Creation band, it's Felt: in terms of mood and aesthetic it's more Forever Breathes the Lonely Word than it is Cigarettes and Alcohol. Imagine if the Velvet Underground were from the Home Counties and had never heard of heroin. It's a mild, polite take on New York drone-rock. The track Vini is like Sweet Jane played by students on the way to the refectory. On Doves Tail, Randall sings, "In the dove's tail lies a sting/In the real world you don't win." How indie is that couplet? Rihanna would never sing it. Lunaria is the standout here, guitar and shoulders above the rest. It may be winter outside, as Love Unlimited once had it, but in Plantman's heart it's always spring and Randall's fancy is turning to thoughts of love and its power to debilitate. On Old Ghosts he ruminates, "I sit and wonder at the moon on the water." Well, of course he does. Fey, defeatist, pseudo-poetic – what's not to like?
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