Mon the Monsters!

February this year brought another February Album Writing Month and, eager for a distration from All This (TM), I dived right into it. Skip forward over a few months’ of industrious beavering and I’m finally pretty pleased to be able to reveal…the a new album by The Disappointed Skeptics Club!

Behold: Monsterism!

The theme of the album, pretty obviously, is monsters and the songs are a mix of cheerful and serious takes about the different ways we beast each other, and ourselves. Though dinnae worry too much, it’s not all scary stuff. There’s a hopeful ending.

For a couple of these songs I did something which is rare for me and actually drew on real life events. Jerry Just Leave Already tells the tale of the night I got psyched out for hours by a fricking mouse. I didn’t really improvise a flamethrower, but the rest of the song is absolutely true. And the final song in the album, Map And Treasure, is about one of the few moments where I just stopped what I was doing and took stock of life. I was driving on a really clear winter’s night in rural Lanarkshire – which is about as dark sky as you can get – and I stopped the car and got out and just stared up at the millions and millions of stars, and let the vast peace of the universe reset me. It’s a moment I think about often even 30+ years later.

The rest of the tracks are fictions covering everying from forbidden love (Attic And Basement) to the absurdity of conservative thought processes (Here Come The Monsters) to dealing with the pitchfork and torch brigade and just being yourself (Head On).

And in a new departure, I’ve done a promotional video too! Zevangelism is a slightly cynical take on those that foist their doctrines upon us. And zombies.

Take a look. Then pop over to bandcamp and hear the rest of the songs!

Mon the monsters!