With ‘Plastic Fruit’, Launch Control swaps their usual frenetic punch for something more insidious- a creeping dread disguised as a lullaby. It’s the kind of track that doesn’t slam the door, but leaves it slowly swinging open as the wind howls through. Gone are the charging riffs and punk urgency of their earlier singles; in their place, a haunted acoustic line, flickering electronics, and a spoken word climax that hits like a diagnosis.
This fourth offering from the forthcoming ‘The Omnipotent Wage’ is less a song than a descent. It starts minimal- guitar and voice, sparse but deliberate- as Lee Switzer-Woolf delivers lines with a kind of eerie clarity. The line doesn’t just hang in the air- it fogs the glass.
As the track progresses, Alex Jay Steer’s production allows the layers to creep in. Subtle electronics flicker at the edges, then swell into a wash of static and distortion. When the full band finally crashes in, it’s not with defiance- it’s with disillusionment. There’s no catharsis, just a louder version of the same unsettling truth: we’re spectators to our own collapse, and no one’s reaching for the off switch.
If the rest of ‘The Omnipotent Wage’ aims outward, ‘Plastic Fruit’ turns inward- reflecting a society so numb to its own artifice that even its outrage feels manufactured. Launch Control aren’t asking you to rage here; they’re asking you to notice. And that, in a time of infinite noise, is the louder act.
This is the sound of a band stretching its skin- not abandoning their roots, but showing just how many ways they can cut. ‘Plastic Fruit’ is more than a stylistic detour; it’s a statement piece- jagged, quiet, and deeply unsettling.