Where the sheets are stained with gold

Well, if you had "New material from Rialto" on your bingo card for 2025, you might be on a winner. Yes, that Rialto, that had a minor post-Britpop hit with Untouchable (you know the one about soaking your skin in alcohol) all the way back in 1998. They're back! Back, back, back!

This is a direct quote from the promo blurb that dropped into my inbox yesterday:

Theirs is a reunion spurred on not so much by a longing for the past as an urgency to grab the best of life while they can. Six years ago, while holidaying in Spain, singer and song-writer Louis Eliot was rushed to hospital for extreme emergency surgery, mere hours from death. His full recovery was an epiphany. “What you might think is if you have a very close to death experience you want to start looking after yourself,” he says. “I just went chasing full speed after my youth. I was just like, fuck it, I might not be here next week, I'm just going to dive in.”

Part of Eliot’s rebirth involved leaving behind a long-term relationship to immerse himself once more in London’s late-night party scene. Part of it was the romance and anguish he found there. And part of it was realising that the songs that were emerging from this period – songs of love and loss, hedonism and regret, set in wistful witching hours – were a call from the past.

Well, we can only speculate what that "extreme emergency surgery" might have been, but whatever the impetus for the resumption of active service, we can truthfully say that this is Rialto's best new song for 27 years.

I still can't decide exactly what No One Leaves This Discotheque Alive reminds me of. It's a bit PSB, I think, though I know that's a lazy comparison. I also think I might like the video more than the song, but maybe that will change with repeat listens/views.

Anyway, what this has done is remind me that my absolute favourite Rialto moment remains earlier, lesser hit (number 37 in 1997's hit parade!) Monday Morning 5.19, all Pulp-lite kitchen-sink drama, pre-Millennial angst and orchestration. Enjoy!