Goth rockers return

A MILLION WAYS TO DIE: ALTERNATIVE SOUND OF THE 21ST CENTURY

- Hein Kaiser

There's power in this music. Raw, melancholic and joyful at the same time. A Million Ways To Die is No Friends of Harry reincarnated, and, at the same time, not at all.

No other South African band defined alternative, somewhat Goth rock in the 20th century quite like the pair and No Friends' colleagues have. They're doing it again, for this century.

Rob McLennan and Dave de Vetta's project, which is fast becoming a band in the traditional sense, is back with a new release, called What Lies Beneath.

It follows the eponymously titled A Million Ways To Die debut EP, and a full-length album is now on the cards.

The collaboration had been years in the making, and it all started with a hangover.

McLennan said that during a visit to De Vetta in Edinburgh in 2018, the pair jammed a few ideas the morning after watching Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds live.

Then, De Vetta said, the recording sat untouched on a hard drive for about a year until Covid hit.

"With lockdown, the technology to connect rapidly evolved, and it became a Friday night ritual, usually accompanied by tequila, to swap song artefacts and ideas."