Bringing us their first release since 2022 EP ‘Get A Load Of This Guy’, Blitzcat’s Gag Salon go all out in the foundational segment of a scaly 2-part epic.

Many of life’s most scintillating, sensational stories begin as lily pads of sincere classroom whispers, piloted downstream towards the lowest echelons of truth by schools of pricked ears and lowered voices. On their newest single ‘Fishyman, Pt. 1 (Flip Flop)’ eccentric London based art-rockers Gag Salon scoop these transmogrified remains from the waters’ murky shoreline, relaying a final, phantasmagoric tale of a boy who discovers he is slowly metamorphosing into a fish. The track serves as the first instalment of their dramatic two-part rock opera, ‘Fishyman’ (to be released in full via Blitzcat Records in October), and finds its conceptual origins in incident from frontman Joseph Mumford’s school days. He elaborates:

“A very popular boy I went to school with suddenly stopped coming in one day. Weeks went by with nobody hearing from him until one fateful day, a girl came shrieking into assembly, screaming that she’d heard his voice coming from the toilet bowl – he was singing. This song is kind of my own interpretation of what might have happened to him…”

Thrusting open green, slime laden stage curtains, ’Fishyman Pt. 1’ ebbs and flows in notably thespian rhythms, humour and tragedy coalescing atop an expeditious see-saw of compositional backdrops. Double-timed verses tremble energetically, tethering white-knuckled jolts of guitar and violin to vaulting bass twangs, later embellished with dissonance-drenched flurries of abounding synths. Choruses situate us back around the campfire, arranging the crackling embers into smatterings of catchy avant-Britpop, before histrionically plunging us back into whirling depths. All the while, the lyrics drive the piece, Mumford leaving no meaty waste as he chews the succulent, waxen fat from every word with acute indulgence, vocals fitfully flitting between raucous yelps and fraught vibrato.

With an astutely absurdist ear for detail, Gag Salon seem to be getting better and better at vivifying their music with the kind of gritty fun that leaves an indelible thirst for more.