Alternative Media Group

OH MERCY

Author:

Marilyn Hetreles

Posted:

Sunday, 16 September 2012

For Oh Mercy fans, get ready for something completely different. After last year’s acoustic-based confessional album Great Barrier Grief, charming front-man Alexander Gow has devised his third album with the aim of quelling his anxieties over being pigeonholed by critics and audiences.

“The birth of the album came out of the realisation that people had started to think they had worked me out as a super earnest singer-songwriter, and I decided it was time to throw them a curveball,” he says.

Gow wants to be creatively flowing and ever-changing: “I don’t want people to think they know me and know what I’m going to do. I want to keep them guessing.”

Oh Mercy’s new single Drums from the album Deep Heat sounds like it’s from another band altogether. It is poppy, catchy, dangerous and sexy. Compared to the mellow tunes of Gow’s previous work, this is music you can really dance to. While the groove is electric, the poetic and sharply witty lyrics really make this album something to get excited about.

“The tongue is in the cheek, surgically. I’m not a whimsical person, I don’t write whimsical songs. I find the grim reality of life hilarious and absurd. I like to think of my songs as dark, but hilarious and absurd as well,” says Gow.

With musings on the drums of love, these songs are about “the realities of the way people relate to each other, exploring the more realistic and potentially more exciting sides of romance. The ways people love one another and all of the bits in between, the stuff in between love and lust.”

“I’m really interested in the way music makes people react physically. I love watching people dance, I think it’s a beautiful unconscious thing to do,” says Gow.

The band played with this idea for Deep Heat by cramming their friends and family into a terrace house for a party to create the film clip, playing the Drums single on repeat until the early morning, the result being some crazy dancing and one hell of a party.

Sep 29, The Standard, $20+BF, moshtix.com.au

Like this article? Register as a subscriber here. It's free! We'll keep you up to date with new stories on the site.