| RELEASE DEBUT EP, HAUNT, OUT TODAY: https://lnk.to/HauntEP“A lyrically swaggering display of how it might feel to be hunted by hornets whilst falling blindfolded down Alice’s rabbit hole but like, in a good way.“ – So Young “They lope through the dark streets and dark stories of South London.” – Steve Lamacq, BBC 6 Music “The Queen’s Head are the real deal…this is pure escapism for the listener.” – Backseat Mafia (8/10 EP review) “A mix of post-punk, wonky pop, disco and subversive, anxious energy.” – Dork “A demonic experiment that has gone very right indeed.” – Jack Saunders, BBC Radio 1 “Unafraid, unapologetic, and daring” – Clash Today The Queen’s Head share their highly anticipated debut EP, Haunt, co-produced by the band’s own Joel Douglas alongside Andy Savours (My Bloody Valentine, Sorry, Black Country, New Road). TheHaunt EP is a 4-track journey into a sonic world that’s both enchanting and terrifying; driven by modern anxieties, electronic and anologue motifs and full of unexpected turns, it’s a space where one can go to experience cathatric release from the doom of a lost future. Today they also share the boisterous new focus track ‘Til Death Do Us Part‘, a riveting sonic take on how it feels to want to ditch a wedding you’re no longer enjoying. Listen to ‘Til Death Do Us Part’ here: https://youtu.be/LM7zcpO66cE Tom Butler says of the track: “Til Death Do Us Part theatrises the folly of the hedonists routine. That doomed want, need, to have fun in a world depleted of it. Set in the inebriated high of a wedding reception, a thumping disco track urges you back to a dance floor, with a swooning chorus melody designed to be chanted, fist pumping the air. All the while, however, a drunk idiot is chuntering in your ear-hole and the track’s harmony suggests that something isn’t quite right. A sudden, serious realisation occurs: you are not enjoying yourself, not any more, you’ve lost sight of your friends, you are hot, you are drunk, the lights are too bright. What you thought was a party celebrating love, what you thought was fun, is not. You want to go home. There is no home to go to. The music ends in a pounding techno migraine, impossible to ignore by its volume and anxiety. We hope you enjoy it, and a very happy future to the bride and groom…”Along with ‘Til Death Do Us Part’, the debut EP also features recent singles ‘Committed‘ and ‘Tonight I Saved A Life‘, all fan-favourites of the band’s raucous, character-driven and unpredictable live shows, which have hypnotised sold-out audiences across London’s Sebright Arms, The Lexington, The Social and The Windmill Brixton, where they just had a summer-long residency. The band have been building support from BBC 6 Music’s Amy Lamé and Steve Lamacq, Radio X’s John Kennedy, BBC Radio 1’s Jack Saunders, BBC Introducing’s Jess Iszatt and more. The Queen’s Head are touring throughout late November in support of the EP’s release, including a headline show at London’s Shacklewell Arms. Full dates can be found here: https://www.songkick.com/artists/10063800-queens-head-ukMore about The Queen’s Head and the Haunt EP You’ve got no choice. Tonight, you’re drinking at The Queen’s Head. A pub built in an abyssal purgatory beyond the time/space continuum, broken pool cues, raggedy carpets and distressed velvet furnishings project your ravaged dreams and lingering hopelessness. The disco ball is spinning spotted lights, the clientele are roistering, but it’s weird in here; black depression hides in maudlin eyes, at the bottom of every dismal glass.And the music’s not exactly helping. Pulsing from the jukebox is the punk-funk-disco of a South-London quintet, The Queen’s Head themselves. The basslines swagger, the rhythms gurn, the vocals swoop and bawl; octagonal synths particulate and zip around the room. The music carries all the impetuous, spitting fire of punk, while matching it pound for pound with the finesse of glossy, high-production pop. Auto-tuning, drum machines, and MIDI outputs abound, fracturing reality into angles ever more oblique.“This is like if Duran Duran got drunk in Southend”, describes one sagacious Youtuber; “It’s music that’s fun, but also somehow horrible”, concedes guitarist/vocalist Joel Douglas.Back in the ‘real world’, The Queen’s Head have been making music together for a decade. Joel Douglas, Tom Butler (Vocals, bass), Robbie Cottom (keys), Mike Hendry (guitars/keys) and George Thompson (drums), were playing suburban-tinted indie-punk together as teenagers – a tiny glimmer of came in the form of a reluctant support for the Kaiser Chiefs in Ibiza.Yet, as they hit their twenties, and moved deeper into the city, tastes matured and an aesthetic reset was due. “We wanted to do something more theatrical. Semi-fictional”, explains Douglas. “I liked the idea of making up this purgatorial pub that consolidated a lot of British Depression that was happening around that time.” Taking heavy inspiration, too, from Mark Fisher’s doomy essay-collection, Ghosts of my Life, the foundational concepts behind The Queen’s Head began taking shape. Songs would be written with narrative as its driving force. Douglas and Butler would sing from the perspective of invented personae – ‘The Ghost Punk’ and the ‘The Human Body’ – Queen’s Head ‘regulars’, good-timers, tragi- embodiments of Fisher’s ‘Lost Futures’. “It’s about how the world around us is in this unstoppable self-destructive cycle; like an alcoholic drinking themselves to death, the ability to imagine something better is impossible,” Butler notes on the music’s concept. “Depression is one of the big themes that runs through our work.”, Cottom adds. ”It’s about the people who feel stuck and don’t know which way to go. They’re the people in the Queen’s Head.”As the band headed into 2022, these concepts began worming their way onto record. An eponymous opening single, and later, ‘Teach Me To Dance‘, set the blueprint for the band’s brand of warped disco. In April, they embraced the methods of Dan Carey, releasing ‘Your God Owes You Money‘ as part of the prestigious Speedy Wunderground single series. In Lieu of festivals, the band took over the Windmill in Brixton one Friday a month over the Summer, each night taking its own unique theme. The residency provided a handsome opportunity to “celebrate the virtue of sonic and social diversity” of the group’s favourite underground artists (Blue Bendy, Vanity Fairy among them).Crowning this prolific year, the upcoming debut Haunt EP – co-produced by the band’s own Joel Douglas alongside long-time collaborator Graham Cohen and Andy Savours (My Bloody Valentine, Sorry, Black Country, New Road) – marks the most cohesive manifestation of The Queen’s Head ideal thus far. Packed with disco-chops, hip-swinging grooves, triumphant choruses and high tempos, Haunt is unmistakably ‘pop’. Notably, the band draw influence from 70s alt-pillars Talking Heads and Ian Dury & the Blockheads, groups that consciously took ‘pop’ forms and twisted them into new pathways. Like those bands, The Queen’s Head are there for you to let loose and dance to: “If you want to go on a night out, it’s much more fun for us and the audience if we can get everyone dancing,” Cottom argues. “We’ve had edgy bands. It’s less interesting being an edgy band now than it was three or four years ago,” Douglas addsOn the other side of the coin, there’s the “horror”, a darkness skulking under the surface that warrants the EP its title. “Taking you from a recognisable reality and dragging it down into the void of depression” – as Douglas puts it – the seamless, four-song suite begins in familiar realms of disco-rock before becoming ever more distorted, digitised and unhinged. Lead single and opener, ‘Tonight I saved Your Life’ (“probably the most normal song we’ve ever written or will write.“), earns them that Duran Duran-in-Southend comparison. Its follow-up, ‘Till Death Do Us Part’ sustains this mood before a so-called ‘Void Section’ shifts the track into entirely electronic domains. From this moment, the drums swap from live to mechanical, reflecting the growing focus on themes of alienation that flare up on “Committed” and “Disco for One”.“It’s gradually less and less real.”, Douglas explains. “Even though the last track is set in a house party, the journey that the EP’s gone on means that this normal setting…you become detached from it. There’s complete dissociation.”While reflecting the ever gloomier climate of modern Britain, The Queen’s Head offer ephemeral yet potent respite. As Butler concludes, “People need some kind of relief now more than ever.” On that note, let’s stick something on the jukebox. Another round?The Queen’s Head – Haunt EP // 17.11.22 |
| 1. Tonight I Saved a Life 2. Committed 3. Til Death Do Us Part 4. Disco For 1 |
| The Queen’s Head 2022 Shows: TICKETS HERE Nov 22nd | London, UK – Shacklewell Arms Nov 23rd | Brighton, UK – The Hope and Ruin Nov 24th | Portsmouth, UK – The Loft |
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@thebristolnomad / @bristolnomad_gigphotography
Role: Photographer / Reviewer / Interviewer
Chief, the one that bugs the team for team for their reviews and images. Creator and founder of The Bristol Gig Guide. Can usually be found swamped in admin or getting cramp kneeling at the front of a gig.
Available for: Gig Shoots, Gig Reviews, Photo Shoots, Album and Single cover shoots, Videography work, Interviews and Touring
First attended gig: Republica, circa 1996.
First gig shot: Hands Off Gretel, at The Louisiana!
Dream gig: Huge metalhead and my ultimate dream gig would be shooting my heroes Slipknot at a huge stadium gig, or as festival headliners. And to experience shooting a headline tour outside the UK
