Based in South London, Strange Devotion is a five-piece band weaving a blend of dream pop, post-punk, and shoegaze influences. Their debut EP, A Demonstration of Devotion, showcases their knack for creating expansive yet succinct compositions that linger in the mind.
The EP will be released on limited edition orange cassette tapes via Fabulous Things, a Margate-based label committed to artist-led creative control and physical music formats. The first single, “Grey to Green,” is out today, with the full EP to follow in late March or early April.
Strange Devotion’s origins are rooted in a chance meeting at a pub in Manchester.Rhys (bass/vocals), Jonny (guitar), and Sean (guitar) first connected while working at The Thirsty Scholar, a venue steeped in ska and northern soul.
As Rhys recalls, “We became good friends and eventually ended up in London,” where their shared love for alternative music led to impromptu jam sessions. Lucy (synth/vocals) joined after a serendipitous meeting with Rhys at a photography exhibition in Peckham. A fortuitous bird-related omen—a massive splatter on her coat—seemed to seal her fate with the band. Charlie (drums) completed the lineup, his connection with Sean forming over their shared admiration for bands like Slowdive.
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“Our music tastes are very aligned,” Rhys explains. “Like a Venn diagram made up of multiple circles almost creating one.” Influences include everything from Wire and The Cure to Stereolab and The Stranglers, creating a sound that’s both introspective and euphoric.
Collaboration sits at the heart of Strange Devotion’s music. “No one ever brings a complete song with every part decided,” says Rhys. “It feels better to half-form something and let it take its shape as a five-piece collaboration.” This organic approach allows space for experimentation, resulting in dynamic tracks that constantly evolve.
The lyrics often tread a fine line between melancholy and optimism. Rhys describes his writing process as a form of catharsis. “When your head feels busy and messy, writing is the most cathartic way to compartmentalize your thoughts. I tend to write lyrics that don’t sound very positive but usually am trying to get something positive across.”
This duality is reflected in the EP’s visuals, which evoke a sense of “desolate comfort.” The artwork, a photo taken by Gianna of her mother in a rural Australian motel, captures themes of isolation and familiarity. “There’s an emptiness to it, but also a homeliness,” says Rhys.
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Strange Devotion has roots in both Manchester and London’s alternative scenes. Their first gig in Manchester featured Boil King, Oyster, and Beau Mec. London venues like The Windmill and The George Tavern have been instrumental in their journey, with support from figures like Dom of Big Richard Records and Katie at The George Tavern. Lucy’s favorite collaborators include Ex Void and Qlowski, whose recent albums remain on heavy rotation.
The band sat down with us to give you their special track by track rundown. Check it out in its detailed glory below.
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Dolls
Jonny (guitar): Me and Sean started bouncing this idea back and forth after Sean sent me the initial guitar sketch during lockdown, so it ended up becoming the first Strange Devotion track when we started jamming with Rhys in 2023. I built up the arrangement in Ableton, and by the end it had about eight different guitar parts (plus bass, keyboard and some 808s). This original was a lot slower and lusher, with a more meditative, post-rock feel, but apart from that the song structure is pretty much identical. Also the outro/fade out (loosely inspired by the guitars at the end of A Hard Day’s Night) was originally way longer!
Rhys: The lyrics are about wanting to free yourself from an ‘island of wires’ that exists in your mind.
Grey to Green
Jonny: I started putting these chords together in my head while on holiday in Bilbao, then when I got home I worked them out on guitar. That became the verse and chorus – the ¾ time B section we all wrote in a room together. Rhys’s vocal and bassline make the song kind of tougher and spikier than I had initially imagined, but it definitely works better that way. And Lucy’s spooky synth line in the B section really completes the song! We chose this for the single just because of how well the recording came out.
Rhys: The lyrics are about finding positivity in the negative actions of people.
Sean (guitar): I’m particularly fond of this track in a songwriting sense. It was a very collaborative and positive songwriting experience between all five of us, and I think everybody’s individual brilliance really shines through on this one.
Charlie: I love the way this song conveys the message of people’s actions, the structure itself alters in different styles of movement particularly the outro and its ballroom dance/waltz build-up to a very Smiths-inspired ending.
Mercy is Real
Rhys: I brought the verses to the band and we kind of pasted on the intro from a guitar thing I had which acts as a small interlude later in the song. I think it’s a completely different key but I like the disjointedness of it. The song is about controlling your own self destructiveness I suppose, it’s a fun anti-self destruction song.
Lucy: I was listening to a lot of Cocteau Twins and wanted to create some ethereal sounding vocals as a call and response in contrast to Rhys’. I like to think of myself as a Tesco value Elizabeth Fraser.
Stage Clothes
Rhys: There’s this artwork I saw in Manchester once where this artist Cornelia Parker blew up her shed (and everything in it) and arranged it from smallest pieces to largest, everything was hanging on wires in a big room. I don’t know why she did this but the image has stayed with me forever, and I feel like we do this with our own thoughts; breaking something down and arranging it to help understand things. Often the things at the front of your mind aren’t necessarily the most significant, it’s all a universe and some of it’s a planet, some of it’s just space debris. The song is about escaping a rut and changing your own perception of the world by rearranging your own thoughts and understanding that you’ve been focussing on things that aren’t important. A bit like Grey to Green we completely did a U-turn about halfway through, taking the song to a different place then bringing back elements from the first part for the ending which we found really fun. It feels quite cheeky to present a verse or a chorus just once then move the song to somewhere else entirely, but we also really enjoy doing that and all of the tracks on this EP do that in their own way – it just feels redundant to repeat something sometimes so we boil it down to what we feel is necessary in order to keep things minimal while still moving to other places sonically.
Sean: The chords for this one started from a jam session I had with my uncle Dave Cross. My sister Kathy recorded us at the time, and then months later after seeing the clip I decided I wanted to bring the chord progression to the others, and Stage Clothes was born from that. People always react really positively to this one.
Dave passed away around the same time we had our first show, and we finished with Stage Clothes that night. It became a bit of a bittersweet moment for me personally, and I can’t help but associate the track with him now. It’s funny how just a chord progression can do that, as the composition is much more than that. I like to think of the track as a little ode to him.
Catch STRANGE DEVOTION live at the following dates:
March 21st: The Ferret, Preston (with Fatberg)
March 22nd: VENUE TBA, Wigan (with Fatberg)
April 19th: The Three Guineas , Reading