New song and video reviewed
Erotic Secrets of Pompeii
The Hand That Did The Deed
DL only
Out today, Thursday 12 September 2024
The best new apocalyptic art-rock band in the UK, Erotic Secrets of Pompeii have been gigging hard around the country impressing and confusing everyone at gigs and festivals (Rebellion and Shambala) alike. Their album would have won the Mercury Prize if they’d entered, but it’s time for new material. A stand alone song and video which sees them enter a new phase of weirdness and utter brilliance, says Ged Babey.
Is this an orgasm? Is this an assassination?
Is this true love or general due diligence!?
Erotic Secrets of Pompeii yet again, blow our tiny human minds with their lyricism.
As for the video, well, should you have a rubber glove fetish you may well combust with spontaneous delight. Five hundred brightly coloured marigolds were sewn together to make the costumes.
Erotic Secrets… don’t even need us critics to tell you about their music… they say it best themselves…
ESOP bring their weirdo art rock to the masses with a new single, featuring agitated sprechgesang vocals, push-and-pull syncopated rhythms, a wall of woozy guitars, and a piano that has definitely been drinking. Not quite post-punk, not quite indie rock, this wonky riff-orientated singalong sounds like Discipline-era King Crimson taking on Britpop by way of Captain Beefheart.
John Robb said to me privately on first watch of the video: Ha-ha! That’s great – like Young Parisians (Adam & the Ants first single) meeting the Cardiacs!
The band are right when they say its Britpop meets Beefheart. Accessible, catchy British pop combined with the out-there oddness of the Captain, and maybe the groove of Franz Ferdinand. And so is John when he links the subversive pop genius of Adam (Ridicule is nothing to be scared of) Ant and the prog-punk originality of ultimate cult heroes Cardiacs.
But the band insist that Osees, Viagra Boys, Warmduscher, Squid and Yard Act are their contemporaries in terms of For Fans Of..
I couldn’t help noticing also that singer Tom resembles Dick from Dick and Dom without his stage make-up.
Lyrically, ‘The Hand…’ offers a dissociated confessional, employing earthy, Rabelaisian imagery in an attempt to scapegoat the shadow self.
The single is accompanied by a frenetic video, showcasing the band members in technicolour suits hand-crafted from rubber gloves.
Filmed at a secret location in Bristol, during a particularly hot day in summer 2024, the video was shot by recurring collaborator Saul Knight.
“In the season of despair / We’ll dress as wolves and hit the county fair!”
Erotic Secrets of Pompeii are step by step taking on Rock, Pop and Art until they conquer pop culture and the public imagination completely, like a certain ancient, mercurial band of bohemian rhapsodizers of old.
Buy / Stream /Download The Hand
2024 dates
15/09 Naughty Corner, Mendips, UK
28 09 Gathering Sounds, Stockton-on-Tees, UK
11/10 Supersonic, Paris, FR
15/10 Glocksee, Hannover, DE
16/10 Kinett, Kusel, Germany, DE
18/10 Binario 69, Bologna, IT
22/10 Trenta Formiche, Rome, IT
24/10 Marla, Perugia, IT
25/10 Spazioporto, Taranto, IT
16/11 West End Centre, Aldershot, UK
30/11 Signature Brew, Haggerston, UK
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