Joe Gideon & the Shark.

Taken from the new album FREAKISH, out Jan 7th 2013.

London based thorough-bred brother and sister combo Joe Gideon & the Shark return with their new album Freakish, out January 7th on Bronze Rat Records. The album was written and recorded during, as the band put it, “most turbulent times”, referring to births and deaths. This upheaval accounts for the 3 year wait for a second album.

The band's début album Harum Scarum burst the band onto the scene, earning them a treasure trove of pull-quotes from all the right places (“an inspired band with fire at their fingertips”-NME, “a terrific debut”-UNCUT), earning invites to support the likes of Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and Seasick Steve, with Time Out calling them “one of the best live acts we’ve seen all year”. Glamorous sister Viva’s (The Shark) showy gymnastic drumming was the perfect yin to Gideon’s bookish, charmingly awkward yang. The album showcased their compelling blend of driving alt-rock riff-o-rama, with runaway offbeat monologues and intermittent melodious poignancy.

Nothing has changed. Except they are now more, erm, “FREAKISH”!

What we have here is idiosyncratic individuality on an entertainingly eccentric, possibly borderline lunatic, scale. We have songs inspired by Werner Herzog getting shot in the gut whilst being interviewed by Mark Kermode (The Insignificant Bullet), true stories about being invited three years in a row to Elvis the dog’s birthday at the Queen’s Park bandstand, references to impersonating a priest, a cat called Sylvester, ping-pong, badly negotiating the London Underground doobied up to the eyeballs and ending up at the end of the line (You, The Pole, and The Rastafarian)…. You have been warned!

I saw them opening for Blues Explosion and it was really good.