Edwin Stevens – A Plague of Gimps
Wrong Speed Records – Released 6th March 2026
Warning: If you want loud and splenetic vibes, you are in the wrong place. For that you need to visit Edwin Stevens wonderful band Irma Vep (check out King Kong and you’ll catch my drift, then want to thank me afterwards).
In the meantime, if you like splendid melodies, lyrics that will astonish, beauty… but also dark places of the mind and body, and a dash of humour, then you are in the right place too – lets admire a plague of gimps together.
A Plague of Gimps is the follow up to 2023’s unsung wonder God On All Fours, which was my album of that particular year. Edwin Stevens has lived on the brilliant edges of noise for the past couple of decades, from the scandalous and riotous Klaus Kinski bacchanalian daze, to the more structured but just as loud (but sometimes quiet) Irma Vep, but in 2023, he downed his noisy playthings, and put immaculately crafted stories and words to a more genteel and no-less captivating electric strum…and now he has done it again. Indeed, songs like Disaster from 2020’s Irma Vep album Embarrassed Landscape, hinted at the possibilities, and so what we have here is predominantly Stevens solo with an electric guitar, and sweet melodies that for the most part belie the depths of the human soul that he lyrically plunges into.
Edwin is a storyteller par excellence which is immediately evident on I Count the Rain. The song opens with a plaintive country strum, that slowly builds in intensity and it is the perfect vehicle with which to transport some astonishing lyrics to receptive ears. I Count the Rain is a statement of intent. Lyrically dense, Stevens consistently surprises with lines such as; That tattoo of your wife came alive again/and surprise surprise/ruined your life in exactly the same way and The time he got bummed by German soldiers/for cigarettes on the hip of the lake and What colour is the water where your father fucked off and died?
Not exactly BTS is it?
Thank fuck.
Cruise Ships continues the album in a similar vein. A slightly off kilter musical lilt is the setting for another example of Edwin‘s incredibly unique story-telling ability. One day in my village it rained cruise ships/ old ladies slapped the waves to scattered applause/there is a rage in the wind/comfort in the blood letting gimp.
I consistently and subconsciously look for points of reference when listening to new music but with Edwin Stevens I struggle. ‘A more poetic Arab Strap‘ perhaps, a Welsh Hubert Selby Jr/Charles Bukowski definitely, if either of those could play guitar quite so well.
Stevens tickles the underbelly of that which is unseen, by which I mean, whilst most modern song lyrics deal with the visible and the surface, Edwin dives deep towards the seabed, and unearths words from the dark recesses of human existence, like a 21st Century Edgar Allan Poe or Gogol‘s The Lower Depths set to music.
As if to accentuate this further, Ugly Thing (so ugly/you should drown it) is a mind-blowing piece of art that conjures up bewildered patients in a lunatic asylum. Stevens talks of Banging on the window/lifting up my dress/licking the frame and this is before mention of Aryan bum disease and gimpy plagues or the sly backhanded when they shine a light from this angle/ you could be confused as cute. As feedback enters the fray further disconcerting images are conjured up, such as toothy head from a maiden/feel the burnt out ambition in my bartender eyes and the cold sore I contracted from my ex wife. If your not infinitely curious to find out more by now, you are artistically dead, but I will continue.
Blobs by contrast is almost life affirming in it’s musical beauty, a short, stark and gorgeous miniature, allowing the listener to briefly escape from the darkness of the previous three songs. It is too brief, but it makes a longer and even more majestic appearance at the album’s denouement.
The Bunker is a jaunty, folk-like little ditty, beautifully delivered, which again is in stark contrast to some surreal lyrics that speak of their dog went missing/well they have their suspicions before we voyeuristically witness his daughter is getting head/from the gaunt boy/ in the rival family/who says that “Germans have autism/or it came from there/originally”/He comes up for air and says “I wish they’d apologise for their country”. Mesmerising stuff.
Blood in the Dumb Room moves overseas as the narrator has the task to Pick up my son from a Thai jail/freshly bailed and has a beautiful instrumental cascade as Stevens croons Entropy over the top. Meanwhile Criminal conjures up further unique images which Edwin adorns with musical confetti. Asking us to let the weather crack you a smile he then sings of In the cold, cold, cold light of day/I felt stranded/ like a worm plucked by a bird/you gave in/ like a bird fucked by a train/I exploded.
Jimmy’s Dream is immediately revealed with the opening James dreamt that I entered/a line dancing competition. Some beautiful strings build into a Lynchian crescendo as Stevens repeats No/No-one/can leave, which is both heart-breaking and at the same time unsettling as you try to work out exactly what has gone on, because, like all great writers, gaps are left for reader/listener to fill in. Stevens is like the John Wayne Gacy Jr (bear with me) of the indie world. He seduces you in with tunes of flirtatious flow, before switching into territories twisted and tumultuous, and worlds that are dark, and dangerous to know.
I Hung My Shadow is a case in point, since it contains the whole shebang (also referred to in one song); drama, horror, humour and the ugly beauty of it all. The narrator tells us; I hung my shadow/over a bridge – interesting image and innocent enough – but then we enter into a world where in the laughter and the wind/all the moans of all the ghouls that you’ve been pegging/It’s incredible to think that you had the time, time, time, the repetitious words accompanied by a gorgeous descending arpeggio. A gorgeous moment. Further mesmeric images are plucked from the ether when we are told No poppies on the moon and accompanied by a distant plaintive wail, Now you’re going/Of course you are/Going back to fuel the sun. I Hung My Shadow is the album’s tour de force. Stevens paints pictures far removed from our daily existence and takes you to places you have never been, nor would necessarily want to go.
He is an abstract artist with a guitar.
The album closer is Blobs II, which has echoes of the sitar-like lines on You Can’t Win from God On All Fours, and is ultimately a hypnotising demonstration of Edwin Stevens gorgeous guitar playing, and after some of the dark places he has taken us, it provides a glorious sunlight with streams of melodies in which to bathe our ears.
The best way to listen to A Plague of Gimps is to make a beverage of your choice, close the curtains, find somewhere comfortable to sit or lie turn your mind away from any distractions and wait to be truly rewarded for your endeavours. Edwin Stevens has the ability to immerse you in alien universes, and the record demands repeated listening to discover even more than what’s on the surface, the lower depths, if you will.
Nearly every song has at least one line (some have many) that leaps out in originality because they have a discombobulating effect on the listener. Some are laugh out loud but nearly always tragi-comic, whilst others simply dazzle and dance in their own wordplay and imagery.
I can guarantee that you have never heard anything quite like the universe that Edwin Stevens inhabits. His is a singular talent and A Plague of Gimps is not so much a follow up to the wonderful God On All Fours, but more of a companion piece. You will be wanting to revisit that album as well as scurrying around his Irma Vep (and other incarnations) back catalogue.
Words I never thought I’d say: I have just been pleasured by A Plague of Gimps.
You can be pleasured too.
