Gig Monkey, AKA Ed Dyer, once again sifts through the best music released by local artists. If you like the sound of something please do go and check it out Send your reviews to ed@theocelot.co.uk
A strange synchronicity this month brought these two complementary releases out at the same time and with shared September launch events in Oxford and Swindon respectively, and because they were both superb and needed more words to be written they get a page to themselves.
Swindon outfit Polar Front take everything that is good about really accessible pop music, ensuring they leave out all the bullshit, superficiality and predictability, add to it some of the best bits of indie rock and all the right parts of quality electronica and come out with something very special indeed.
Twisting and blurring genre conventions as soaring dynamics, sparse ambient moments, lush melodic waves of sound and solid funky beats are blended perfectly, flowing in and amongst each other in a perfectly balanced balletic choreography. Musically monochrome one minute, brazenly technicolour the next it is both jump up exciting and dreamy.
For those who like to relate to the familiar, you can’t go wrong with considering the likes of London Grammar, Pvris, Jack Garrett and Foals as obvious comparisons. This is slick, melodic and ear-wormy pop music, but a brand of pop music that retains its indie-cool and individuality.
Accessible and catching yet interesting, exciting and challenging, forget the turgid nonsense that clutters up the charts and radio playlists, this is what 21st Century pop music should be about.
The blending of raw instrumentation and technology is handled superbly with crisp and clean production that shows just how nuanced the music is and how it has been cleverly layered up.
For such a new band they operate as an incredibly cohesive unit, each member a critical cog in the machine – nobody is musically overshadowed, it all works together perfectly.
However, as remarkable as this collective approach is, the lasting impression comes from the spine-tingling vocals of Sophie-Rose Goldsworthy. Rarely do you come across such quality of tone and pitch and such control, especially at this level.
This is a voice that belongs on a much bigger stage, and in this band, it appears to have found exactly the right vehicle to do that without selling out and becoming a faceless pop juggernaut.
This Oxford band have plenty of musical DNA in common with Polar Front, it is no accident they ended up supporting each other on their respective record launches.
There is that expert blending of raw and digital instrumentation, a keen pop sensibility that keeps the music accessible and some quality melodic songwriting.
Where this differs is in the overall vibe, it has a more “indie” feel to it, not rougher, just less shiny. This gives the songs a vitality and live vibe that really appeals to this reviewer’s ears.
The contrasting male / female shared vocals are a dynamic that works perfectly, as sibling vocals are prone to, and the bounce and rhythm in much of the work here suggests they will develop into a killer festival band. Think along the lines of Bastille, Alt-J and the less histrionic moments of Florence & the Machine and you will heading in the right direction.
There is something about this recording that nags at you, that demands a listen, its subtle layered production somehow leaves you wanting to wind it back each time it finishes to check something else out, to find an aspect of a song that you “kind of” heard and want to check if you were imagining things or not.