Plasticine Dreams is, first and foremost, a breezy, Britpop-inspired look at the vacuity of fame and the futility of opinions for their own sake (‘I thought I had a point to make, but I don’t remember’). Dig deeper, though, and there’s the suggestion that some choose to embrace mundanity as a distraction from tomorrow’s concerns (like climate change). Meanwhile the melancholic On A High Ledge, as Henry explained to Kerrang! recently, processes the slow-burning trauma of witnessing a suicide as a child. Through the repeated thrum of its titular chorus, however, alongside the lyric ‘I don’t like playing with the other boys’, it also probes the precariousness of masculinity. It’s certainly an effective way to reframe the familiar; You, Me & The Class War likens widening fissures in society to a toxic relationship (‘What would you do to me if I open my mouth?')
In the wrong hands this juggling act would have ended up a bungled heap. What makes GLUE work so well, other than emotive compositions not settling on one style and the incisiveness of the writing, is the perspective Henry is coming from. He’s not some know-all claiming to have the answers to life’s big questions, he’s a bystander protecting his mental health by diarising the sadness, bemusement, and self-loathing life presents him with (describing himself as ‘an oil stain on the world’ on Terrible Love).