Sarah & the Safe Word – Red Hot & Holy EP
Sarah & the Safe Word - Red Hot & Holy EP
Release Date: Out Now
They might look like the queue
for a My Chemical Romance concert and describe themselves as “Haunted Cabaret
with melodies for the morally insolvent” but strip that all away and what you’re
left with is an impressive and inventive band from North Atlanta. Sarah &
The Safe Word’s new EP, ‘Red Hot & Holy’, is pushing it’s luck in terms of
length at seven tracks (mini-album, anyone?) but as the first track is only a
minute long organ introduction by the name of ‘Invocation’ I’ll let them off.
The party really gets started with title track ‘Red Hot & Holy’, a piano based
track that would fit in on a Mika or Felix Hagan & The Family album in
terms of sheer theatrical energy and passion.
‘The Louisville Shuffle (RIP)’
continues on the same theme but this time with a more gypsy-folk meets New
Orleans stomp about it as lively fiddles bounce off the grunt of the electric
guitars. On ‘Sneaky Boy’, the musicians rotate to let the clarinet take the
lead on a sexy little sashay on to the dance floor in a long red number cut to
the waist with matching gloves. When they’re finished luxuriating on the top of
a grand piano, the East-European inspired rock stomp of ‘Dead Girls Tell No
Tales’ gets going which is part Gogol Bordello and part System of a Down
collaborating on the score for a new musical. ‘Formula 666’ is a more direct
rock’n’roll song on the surface with furious drums and pop-punk guitars but the
violins and chord progressions make this another track that would work as part
of a Broadway show that only runs around Halloween every year – the Rocky Horror
Picture Show reboot, perhaps?
This collection closes out on ‘Lit
Cigarette’ as the ensemble (there are seven of them after all) rally round to
go out on a high and leave the audience baying for more. There are no encores in
recorded music any more (RIP the hidden track) but catch these guys live and I would
expect at least one encore and a full band bow/curtsey at the end of the show.
More information: https://www.facebook.com/sarahandthesafeword/
Live Dates:
27th October – Unity, North Atlanta
31st October – EXIT/IN, Nashville
7th November – The Masquerade, Atlanta