“Who says you can’t have a dangerous and sexy album with great words?”

From this basic premise, Alexander Gow and his Oh Mercy bandmates have crafted Deep Heat, the band’s third and most colourful album to date; a collection of 10 propulsive songs with a groove as deep as the Mariana Trench. After last year’s acoustic-based confessional Great Barrier Grief, Gow decided to shift the goal posts a little - well, a lot actually - decamping to Portland, Oregon, for two months and turning a bunch of songs he’d written on piano in the “traditional singer-songwriter fashion” into something else entirely.

For the first time ever, he began writing in the third-person, taking on characters and exploring some of the darker sides of sexuality and desire. “I read Paul Kelly’s memoir and was excited by the idea of writing from another perspective. Subsequently every song on the album is a work of fiction. It has opened up a whole new vocabulary for me to dive head first into.”

Deep Heat is modern, forward-thinking pop; a colourful mix of styles all held together by a singular groove. Gow even takes a stab at reggae on Still Making Me Pay, while the urgent Pilgrim’s Blues features Hammond organ by US musician Steve Berlin. The legendary Los Lobos member is an ever-present on Deep Heat, contributing horns, keys and an unforgettable flute solo on the effortlessly cool title track.

The hotly anticipated third album from Oh Mercy, Deep Heat, is certainly not what you will be expecting. Alexander explains “I wanted to explore the effect of groove in songs that I had written very simply in a ‘singer songwriter’ fashion on the piano. To craft a song with passion and fervor and then see if I could then not take the typical singer songwriter approach to the recording.”

Oh Mercy moved into The Family Farm studio in Portland, Oregon to begin recording with Producer Burke Reid. “Burke has made my favourite Australian albums of the last five years. Including Jack Ladder’s ‘Hurtsville’ & The Drones ‘Havilah’. He works with bands to make the album the bands want to make. Burke helped me realise my pre-conceived conceptual approach to the album and encouraged me to push past the comfort zones I had recorded music within in the past.“

Track Listing:

• Deep Heat
• Rebel Beats
• My Man
• Fever
• Pilgrim’s Blues
• Europa
• Suffocated
• Still Making Me Pay
• Drums
• Labour of Love
• Lady Eucalyptus (via Download Card)