Humour

Glasgow's Humour today share a further taster from their upcoming debut album, "Learning Greek", out August 8th on So Young Records, this time in the form of "Memorial".

The fizzing "Memorial", snottily anthemic but emotionally gutting, is a perfect example of the high-wire act Humour have pulled off across the album. It finds Christodoulidis on the beach at Troy, using poet Alice Oswald’s titular reinterpretation of Homer’s Iliad to find a new context through which to understand the way death’s inevitability can sit on our chest. “Oswald describes the Iliad as a catalogue of death,” he reflects. “It’s a step by step description of all these people being slaughtered, but it’s described in an incredibly beautiful way.”

Underlining the idea that history is kept alive by connection, in Humour’s own retelling Hector and his wife Andromache wait next to buzzsaw guitars, the knowledge of what’s to come hanging heavy between them like the blow that’ll wipe the Trojan hero from the board. As drummer Ruaridh Smith and bassist Lewis Doig ratchet the pace up and up and up, Christodoulidis reshapes thousands of years of granular history into a sharp point. It’s a joyful transgression — what if the Iliad ripped? — but it’s also a telling reminder that some stories should always be malleable in our mouths.

Christoloudis had the following to say about the themes behind their new single and an undoubted album highlight:

"Memorial describes a scene from the Iliad in which Andromache must say goodbye to her husband Hector the night before he’s killed in battle. The main theme of the song is imminent disaster and trying to remain stoic in the face of it."

The 11 songs of "Learning Greek" combine lithe riffs, throat-stripping intensity and a crushing take on the fabled loud/quiet dynamic, with the record following two critically-acclaimed EPs from the band - 2022's "Pure Misery" and 2023's "A Small Crowd Gathered To Watch Me". With last year largely set aside to write new material, the band returned this Spring with "Neighbours", a heavy, decisively robust comeback from the five-piece and one that saw Humour added to the BBC 6 Music playlist for the first time, and its sprightly, jagged follow-up "Plagiarist" last month.

Produced by Idlewild's Rod Jones at his Post Electric studio in Edinburgh, "Learning Greek" will be available on CD, standard LP, a Dinked edition LP with exclusive colour and sleeve design, and a Rough Trade exclusive edition LP paired to a zine with lyrics and illustrations from Andreas.