Following on from the excitement of their 2022 EP pure misery, Humour are ready to share a brand new shiny EP. Faith Hussain explores their latest offering...
Humour, a Glasgow based post-punk band with many a thread of lyrical excellence, release their
latest EP A Small Crowd Gathered To Watch Me after months of anticipation. I’ve seen Humour live
a handful of times and seeing them in the flesh in mostly very intimate venues reinforces how
categorically Humour explore lyricism as the forefront of their music, with music appearing as
something to bolster Andreas’ narrative that reads like poetic fairytales.

Their latest EP of five tracks beautifully delves into this motif. Track 1, A Small Crowd Gathered To
Watch Me, is a completely fictional story Andreas contrived through the lens of an invented
character. The bass appears troubled and angrier than the other tracks on this EP, complimenting
Andreas’ jarring repeated screams of ‘I’d rather do it on Wednesday, fuck off’, connoting a sense of
instability within his character. The repetition of this lyric whispers to something limbo-like as his
character switches between down tempo explorations of his sensual fields, e.g. ‘jazz was the
soundtrack, yeah’ matched by the deceleration of the drums, and violently delves into a soliloquy
paced alongside the riveting appearance of bass that reminds me of something out of a tragic
Shakespeare play. It’s disjointed and brews insanity.
"The sense of instability is a key motif throughout these tracks, the lyricism evokes desperation"
All tracks in this EP have a similar melody overlapping across the songs, even the choruses feel
related but variants of eachother in terms of rhythm. The second track Wrangle, maybe my
favourite on the EP, is based on a real figure. After talking to Andreas about this, he explained it’s
about a polar explorer lost in the ice on Wrangle Island. The sense of instability is a key motif
throughout these tracks, the lyricism evokes desperation as he painstakingly exclaims “I want to get
old”. The track seems to follow his attempt to flee as the breaks in synth around the chorus allude to
his loss of time and struggle for survival whilst his thoughts fleet between personal and collateral-
“and my poor friends”. The recurrent heavy bass development in the chorus appears desperate as
our character gently yet painfully sings “Another 10 miles coming up I see it/ Another 10 miles
coming up, I see it”, inducing a perpetual structure in which the explorer’s attempt to escape the ice
seems boundless.

The third track, Big Money, again is about a real figure. Andreas explains he wrote it about a
greedy rubber tycoon. The beat immediately sounds sinister as the track jumps between aggressive
drumming and a more structured tempo to illustrate his desire for “land in the valley” and
exploitation of the indigenous people on this land. The break in lyricism in the song consists of
Andreas screeching and reminds me of a spoiled child’s demands. There absolutely is a sense of this
character trying to prove himself as he gobbles wealth by “killing with abandon” and destroying this
old world in the name of wealth; the slowing of the beat towards the end and trail off by the gentler
guitar to me suggests this character appears satisfied with murder.
Take a Look at my Tongue is jammier and more upbeat but again is about a real character- a soldier
whose face was destroyed in battle. It screams its verses in sparse typical Humour fashion, similar to
the second track the lyrics and guitar riffs are gentler when this character drifts into a feverish
realisation of his surroundings, seeing “Leopold riding in his dreams”. Gentler on verses, it breaks
into the grimly chorus of awareness of his body covered in blood exemplified in screams of pain by
Andreas. The second half of this track combines the singing of lyrics under shrieks that pierce with
agony as the character exclaims “take a look at my life… what do you mean it’s finished”, tackling his
mutilation through battle as the baseline propels to match the agony of his disfigurement.
The final track nods to the first track. Andreas explains this song is based on a fictional invented
character again, brewing insanity and acknowledging the theme of disfigurement and instability
within the other songs too. The Halfwit breaks up the melody and fractures the tempo completely
while drums merge in and out of the song when Andreas exclaims “I turned into a Halfwit” for the
first time while the character claws, searches, crawls into something subhuman. This track presents
insanity driven from loneliness, similar to the first track, yet this character appears foolishly careless
about his transformation. He “searches the graves” after clawing up from the ground and swims in
water “full of fish”, connoting the image of something devilish that he's mentally become. The last
lyrics are spoken; the melody again transforms to compliment the characters mutation as his “eyes
are open” as he sees “saints and hermits”, advancing that his arguably mental change is complete in
what reminds me of a purgatory like environment.
Humour tell the most poetic stories. In Andreas’ words, they “wanted the EP to give a series of
glimpses into these real or imaginary lives” and succeed they do, yet again.
Faith Hussain
Edited by Alice Beard
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