The Orchestra (For Now) - Plan 76 Review

The seven-piece London stalwarts deliver a satisfying continuation from their last project, as well as tinker with their sound in the studio.

The Orchestra (For Now) have been together for two years, and they've been worth listening to for two years. Seemingly arriving onto the burdened London pub circuit with impeccable musicianship and about half-a-dozen memorable melodies in hand, they were destined for a quicker route to the top than most bands. They knew what they were doing, and cultivated the correct amount of intrigue with interesting artwork, cryptic lyrics, and their eponymous website — which contained various oddities, goodies, and a forum for TOFNheads (they haven't really come up with a good fanonym yet) to discuss the band's progress. It was wonderfully crafted, with all of their early posters and artwork being produced by members of the band, making a cohesive multidisciplinary package that doesn't feel amateurish at any stage.

They're impossible to miss if you're London-located. They gig with insistence, often with a fixed setlist. Most bands have to change the ordering of their songs to see what works, but with TOFN, the variation came from the band members themselves. The seven-person lineup is perhaps unwieldy for a new band to hold together, but they have the liberty of not having to cancel gigs if their guitarist drops out; they simply switch out the sounds and make it work, regardless of who is there! Plan 76 digs into this compositional flexibility, as there are a lot of dynamics between frontperson Joseph Scarsbrick's piano/vocals and the powerful instrumentals of the band.

Admittedly, the soft vs. hard dynamic that pervades the EP does wear a little thin by the time you get to ‘Deplore You/Farmer's Market’, because when the band kicks into overdrive, it tends to sound similar each time. When they performed this song live at the start of their career, it was more subtle. Sure, the piano twinkled along to start the song, and it ended up as a full Slintian crescendo, but it got there via a long and winding route, with Lingling's beautiful violin piece accompanying the grounding piano. But in the recorded version, Scarsbrick sounds like he's getting a little too familiar with the microphone. Compared to their live mix (Live at the Windmill, 31/1/24), it feels like they've turned the saccharine emotions of the song up a little too high. But that's not to say that it's badly produced; it’s just a bit ASMR-y. Everything sounds crystal clear, and even in the loudest moments on the record, you can hear all seven players.

But enough of that. The EP is laden with catchy motifs, great melodies, and has a great sense of flow. There's motif-based callbacks to earlier songs on their Plan 75 EP, and the shape of a narrative could be pieced together like well-crafted poetry. Threads of "the plan" are present — but what does it all mean? There's so much left in the dark, but filled with glimmers of story and a smorgasbord of colourful metaphors. All open to interpretation.

‘Impatient’ is a classic intro to the TOFN sound, the seamless blending of loud and soft, with the aggression and bravado of early-era MCR and the subtlety of Bark Psychosis or some of the more ambient Radiohead cuts. The middle section of the track keeps the momentum going, but almost at a subsurface level. ‘Hattrick’ contains yet more of the repeating ideas present throughout their discography thus far, staccato piano riffs juxtaposed with thrashy guitar-violin lead parts. The addition of violins and vocal samples halfway through really brings the piece together, setting up a deserved buildup to the crescendo — with cryptic lyrics abound; "Smokey Jack, Trader Joe, the president is going slow". All lending yet more credence to the band's more poetic side. The band have honed their sound in live sets, so when transplanted into the studio, they have to be careful not to lose that crowd-surge energy. The whooshing round of cheers behind the vocals at the end of ‘Hattrick’ is a perfect solution.

Next up is ‘Amsterdam’, which has less rollercoaster-like dynamics than the rest of the EP, which is necessary to counteract the stop-start feel of some of the other songs. It's still got drop-outs where the piano dominates, of course. The weird doggish yelp that marks the start of the song's midway is perhaps not Joe's finest vocal delivery, but the rest of the track is excellent, and culminates with the same melody as ‘Wake Robin’ (of their previous EP) — a fantastic callback that had me smirking in my seat.

The intro to ‘The Administration’ feels like the offspring of the intro to The Voidz's ‘Human Sadness’ and some of black midi's more subdued songs. It lulls you into a sense of solemnity before doing the classic clattery rug-pull and drops you into the instrumental racket that you (by now) have come to know and love. With a lot of ‘Paranoid Android’ influences coming through towards the end of the first climax of the track as well, the lead guitar sings a wonderful coda before the song collapses into itself. 

At last comes long-term setlist staple, well-earned closer, and fan favourite ‘Deplore You / Farmer's Market’. Five songs in (ten if you're bunching Plan 75 within this as well), the sound of The Orchestra (For Now) reaches its apotheosis here. Whenever it's deployed live, the audience sways along to Scarsbrick's smooth melodies, but the rest of the band doesn’t feel too absent. Now, in this version, it's been stripped back perhaps a little too far. Most of the first four minutes of the song don’t even use four of the band members! And then the song retreats, before culminating in the loudest peak of their short discography, perhaps their own version of BCNR's ‘Basketball Shoes’.

It’s not to say it's bad at all, no, it's a very pretty and perfectly-executed song, but the formula of piano & vocals (soft) → every instrument crashes in at once → repeat is perhaps finally wearing me out by this point. As an individual song, it's great, but the melodic and dynamic overlap with the other songs makes it feel less great, even at the end of the EP's brief runtime. Similar criticisms could be levied at BCNR, sure, but even then they have just about enough variety.

The mix of their live set was much less staccato and perhaps better-executed. But it seems that the heightened peaks and lowered troughs are what they were going for, as well as what works best in a studio environment that avoids trying to sound too 'live' and unfocused, or unfinished. They’ve executed their two EPs with grace and a knowledge of what they want from their sound. Hopefully, they will fill the Black Country, New Road-shaped shoes which they have been subtly expected to fill. But what would be better is that they forge on to create their own sound, which they're definitely on track in doing.

In short, The Orchestra (For Now) continues to operate at full throttle. At their gigs, new songs arrive on the setlist and make you feel like they've always been there, crowd-pleasers, songs to really get up and pogo to — and they've translated very well to the studio. Lovely stuff, guys.