Decius - Decius Vol. II (Splendour & Obedience)

A supergroup of sorts - Fat White Family’s Lias Saoudi, Trashmouth Records’ Luke and Liam May , and Quinn Whalley of Paranoid London and Warmduscher - Decius have travelled the earth liberating people from banality since the release of Decius Vol. I. They’ve revealed to all those they’ve encountered just what was missing in their lives: pump without borders, pump without reason - absolute pump.

Decius live sets at Berghain’s 19th birthday celebrations, Block 9’s NYC Downlow at Glastonbury and Opium Club in Vilnius have set pulses racing, and they count the likes of Dixon , 2manydjs, Honey Dijon , Mochakk , Or:La , Iggy Pop and Depeche Mode as fans. Now they offer up Decius Vol. II (Splendour & Obedience) . It throbs with an almost impossible sense of potential, and expands on the lexicon of molten desire.

The sound has moved into new territories, with tastes of house, disco and techno, all with an under lying base note of acid on tracks such as t he slippery night cruise intensity of ‘ Birth of A Smirk ’, where Colonel Abrams gets his nipples tortured.‘ Queen of 14th St’ is all watersports and Cybertron force from Detroit via Deptford.

First single ‘Walking In The Heat’ struts like a sunburnt and horny Kraftwerk, while ‘Ghent ’ is purest uncut ’88 acid. Vol. II is the art of seduction in damp rooms painted black. Keep hydrated from whatever source is available. Be your own pleasure centre. Vol. II is veritable selection box of booty bumps and illegal highs made at night for the night and beyond. This is music that takes pride in its walk of shame.

“My mate Rob says he can no longer make love without first sticking Vol. I on the stereo. A lot of the lads down Berghain have been complaining of a similar problem since we played there. Once you’ve had Vol. I you need Vol. II. With Vol. II, we hope to further inspire and extend this kind of desperate dependence in our acolytes.” 

New believers queue up to take part in the bacchanal disco revelation. Some who recalled what it was like to lose their mind, body and soul to a music that tugged away at them in the shadows half a lifetime ago, alongside a host of younger fauns, drawn into a web of joyous degradation, of enchantment via erotic dissonance. A post-Covid set that want connection come what may, with Saoudi acting as both Pied Piper and willing self-sacrifice, guiding them through the temptations they’d previously been sheltered from. 

“There have been moments on stage when the division between all things ceases,” Lias explains. "When the only element binding anything together is pure, unadulterated, fanatical passion . It's at moments like these you need to reach for your butterfly net to try and harvest the magic for later.” Decius Vol. II has them, as Liam puts it, “Further entrenched in delusions of conquest and grandeur.” Fittingly for a turn named after a Roman emperor, the last days of that empire filled with lust, excess and a farewell to order and normality, Decius’ gladiator ial effo rts are the 21st century’s equivalent. Literally fiddling with their knobs while the Earth burns and slides into dystopia.

For those acolytes, then, good news - adventure and vinegar strokes await. And for all those still yet to stick their tongue out and taste Decius, Vol. II glows menacingly and enticingly, haunting their dreams and ready to engulf. Decius Vol. II is the magick and passion of an electronic body music with unexplained rashes and sore orifices. It’s all there for the taking. Ultimately Decius love you. They know what you want. And you know that you want it too.

“You ever see that show Civilisation with Kenneth Clarke? It details the arc of western civilisation from the ancient world onwards, up until the ‘60s when the show was made. For me, this has been the principal source of inspiration. The fine grain of suffering that lurks behind every civilised thing. Hence the album's subtitle Splendour & Obedience.”