video premiere / single review / tour dates
Erotic Secrets of Pompeii
Body Horrific
Out now
Arguably the most exciting live band in the UK currently.. touring this month… and now… Existential Dread and Grievous Bodily Horror from Erotic Secrets of Pompeii’s Phantasmagoric New Single – and something of the lascivious spirit of Tim Curry As Frank-N-Furter lives on, says Ged Babey.
My corner of cyberspace socials has been full of tributes to the late actor Tim Curry. His many memorable roles eclipsed in proto/punk minds by Dr Frank-N-Furter: a character so iconic and immense they will always be a influence in popular culture, the arts and gender debate. The entrance of the Doctor in the Rocky Horror Picture Show is the greatest introductory scene to a character in a movie ever. Whilst Tim Rests In Peace, Frank will Live Forever.
In the original stage production the character was originally blonde, until they noticed Lou Reeds black bushy hair and copied that. Adam Ant was one of many artists who, in turn, took elements of the look and persona for the early Antz… and more than 50 years on Tom from Erotic Secrets of Pompeii has always had a Tim Curry as Frank influence on his vocal style and stage persona. Of course, of course its mixed with many other influences from Leigh Bowery to Terry Gilliam, Salvador Dali, but it’s there. And it serves him and the band well….
The other off-topic thing I feel needs saying is: the current explosion of young Goth girls all over TikTok – being heartily moaned about by Original Goth Gatekeepers online – means that ESOP have a huge untapped potential audience, if only they (the Goth-ettes) actually sought-out and listened to music to go-with their look and adopted style. Maybe a fraction of them will… and it will grow and grow. I hope so…
Cue Press Release (finally getting on-task…) The new single is well up to ESOP’s sky-high standard and the video is suitably freaky with its steam-punk puppetry and ritualistic interpretive dance.
THE SONG
Through a series of grotesque, phantasmagoric vignettes “Body Horrific” explores the strangeness of having a body, and the body as an unreliable, imperfect vessel. Tumultuous, chant-a-long choruses insist “your body is not your body”, while calmer verses explore dreamlike apparitions in various states of decay – the playboy, the cowboys, the wax dame – all doomed by their own bodies.
THE VIDEO
The folk-horror-tinged video was made in collaboration with Morbid Merriments – the Bristol-based uncanny, surrealist puppet-maker and multidisciplinary performance artist. Here we witness bodies in motion, bodies in separation.
BODY HORRIFIC
See the body, see the body,
See the body, see see the body…
Your body is not your body
There is nobody who can tell you nothing
In the swimming pool, in the hotel lobby
Ever sat right back and disembodied?
I have never felt so betrayed
I have never been so afraid
I have never felt so ashamed
The playboy was plagued by extraordinary visions
Downgraded by the elevated stage of his condition
He saw the constellations swimming in his soup
The cowboys came in their scenes of leather
Spread out their naked pain they were scarred and tethered
Their hair was fading in their portraits in a darkened room
In shackles I rage, ooh ooh
I rattle my cage
The wax dame proclaimed that she’d been recently widowed
Half-mad with babe she threw herself out the window
Her contoured body made a perfect tomb
(C) ESOP
THE BAND
Erotic Secrets of Pompeii are currently building on momentum gained from recent funding from the Music Export Growth Scheme (BPI), signing a publishing deal with Wipe Out Music and recent headline tours and festivals across UK and Europe.
The band released their debut album, Mondo Maleficum, to wide acclaim in January 2024, followed by their second album Pitchfork Libra in October 2025. The band is set to tour UK and Europe with new music later this year, and have made recent appearances at major festivals including Beautiful Days, ArcTanGent, Dot 2 Dot and Haldern Pop (Germany).
ESOP Autumn 2026 Tour – Tickets
17/09 – The Ferret – Preston
18/09 – Amped – Huddersfield
19/09 – Riff Factory – Stoke-on-Trent
20/09 – Dead Wax – Norwich
24/09 – Bunkhouse – Swansea
25/09 – Soundhouse – Leicester
26/09 – Craufurd Arms – Milton Keynes
27/09 – The Railway Inn – Winchester
27/11 – File 7 – Magny-le-Hongre, France
ESOP portrait by Dave Sausins
Intro – Ged Babey – the rest, Press Release content.
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