Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's Gossip does Total Eclipse of the Heart in sepia for their big return single, Perfect World. Now I love a good visual reference when it comes to music videos but sweet Jesus, Mary and the donkey she rode (let's call him Derek) this one has influences flying out of all crevices like disturbed bats in the belfry but more on them later. First of all I'd like to take a moment to look back at the Gossip-minus-the-The's previous marriages of audio and visual: remember when a little song called Standing in the Way of Control appeared in the Skins (before it went downhill) Ad campaign and all the now-Hipsters thought 'Oh yeah! They're so edgy vomming up everywhere, let's go be hipster too!' and became hipster and everyone loved The Gossip because they were told it was cool? Do you then recall when The Gossip dropped the The and became simply Gossip, came back after three years away with the knock-out, glam rock, disco inspired Music for Men album which featured videos full of glitter paint explosions (Heavy Cross), balloon-headed spandex-clad rollerbladers (Love Long Distance) and a Gay Pride Schoolbus party (Men In Love)? The hipsters had long forgotten them by then but i doubt Beth Ditto gives one. I would not mess with Beth Ditto ever. She'd eat me alive whilst bespoked in gold and leather. Who will this video cater for then, the old hipster crew? Or will it just be continuing on the path of Ditto-Does-What-She-Wants-Yeah? To the video and we open up with creepy church + bell toll signalling 'Death is looming! Repent! Repent!' or something along those lines but wait! Do I see flickering lights in the windows? It's hard to tell in this bloomin sepia but... yes, yes there are! Oooh i'm feeling nervous now, we're straying into horror movie world. Now there's a motionless figure surrounded by candles and as it gets closer and closer to the face... AAARGGHH! Oh no wait, it's just Beth Ditto dressed as the ghost-girl from The Ring - if the girl had been trapped in an all-you-can buffet instead of a well of course. No need to panic people, back to your seats. Yes, it's the first of those many influences I was telling you about and they just keep rattling away as the song progresses. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8mw5i43-uQ&ob=av2e There's a Guns N Roses-esque chapel scene, guitarist Brace Pain (ten years suffering at the orthadontist I should be called Brace Pain) sporting an outfit from the The Crow and Beth has clearly gone to town on the chapel curtains with a pair of scissors, alongside Total Eclipse of the Heart dancers sequences (think Adele's powder ninja but with spandex and crotch shots). Beth is also channeling Morticia Adams and that thing from The Grudge down a corridor sometimes walking, sometimes gliding towards you with a intent to torture on her mind (first the curtains, next YOUR FACE). I haven't even mentioned the Bohemian Rhaspody mirror-imaging (I see Beths, they're multiplying), 80's power ballad arm clutches in front of rippling cloth (a child of the 1980's cannot imagine a world without floating rippling cloth and wind machines) and the 'Woop woop! Colour me pretty!' stained glass disco finale, which turns the once gothic church into the Eurovision Song Contest. Oh and Beth's chapel curtains dress turns out to be made of felt strips sponsored by Art Attack. It's often a fine balance between gloriously camp and ridiculously OTT but Gossip-Minus-the-The decide to ignore the risk and straddle that line like it's their prized stallion from the stables of disco hell. The war-speech? 'Ok we are a rock band, have some 80's rock references (Meatloaf will be kicking himself he didn't release this) and some gothic chic, that's fine by us. But you'll have to deal with our fiercely kick-ass pop side too and that means chapel-caught-in-a-kaleidoscope and interpretive dance time suckers'. The song itself isn't up to much (bordering on mediocre if i'm honest) but it's not giving up without one last visual banquet which is as bombastic and excessive as it needs to be to give the song (and Beth's always impressive pipes) a spicy burst of fire. Gossip-minus-the-The aren't a band that are going to be courting commercial success readily but i know this will be the most fun I have watching a rock video this year. Ditto-Does-What-She-Wants-Yeah? Yeah, she thought so.