Punky R&B quartet Eight Rounds Rapid have released a video for the new single from their latest album.
Formed in Southend, Essex, in 2010 by drummer Lee Watkins and vocalist David Alexander, the band were joined by guitarist Simon Johnson and, in 2012, by bassist Jules Cooper.
Their 2014 debut album Lossleader brought comparisons to the post-punk bands such as Alternative TV and Wire, as well as various pub rockers.
The band gained radio support from Tom Robinson, Gary Crowley and Mark Radcliffe, and they toured supporting Dr Feelgood legend Wilko Johnson – guitarist Simon’s dad – in 2013 and again in 2015.
Their second album Object D’Art was released in 2017, and was declared one of the albums of the year by Louder Than War magazine.
A third album, Love Your Work, was released in August 2020 on Hamburg-based label Tapete Records, to further critical acclaim.
Onesie is the fourth single taken from it, after Love Don’t, Tricks and Eating, and its video stars Tom Vaughan-Lawlor from Avengers: Infinity War and Peaky Blinders.
The song, rooted in the R&B of the Feelgoods and Nine Below Zero, is a satire on soulless and Instagram-obsessed post-Brexit Britain, delivered in David Alexander’s trademark sardonic sneer.
Recorded under the spectre of a global pandemic, Love Your Work reflects feelings of confusion, angst and isolation.
Eight Rounds Rapid‘s customary low life and underground subjects are still the only language they know, but the album grapples with the folly of nostalgia.
