Seductive and enigmatic slacker indie rock. ‘Beach side’ features wonderful cascading guitar lines falling on each other like lapping waves at the beach side. As with Ronseal the song does as it says on the tin.
Arbes are a Melbourne band named after 19th Century Czech revolutionary and writer, Jakub Arbes (Purely hypothetical, more than likely the name was plucked out of a French dictionary). Australia is an undoubted hub for this brand of idle psych-rock. Tame Impala are one of the biggest bands in the world, off-shoot Pond are enjoying an increasing profile while relatively new kids on the block Blank Realm and The John Steel Singers revel in their stoner vibes. The audience for these bands, while diminished by the rise in popularity of electronic dance music amongst the world’s youth, is still strong. Their success is hardly calculable, yet at the heart the music is unabashed pop with a nostalgic touch that evokes summers long gone.
We should add Arbes to this impressive roster. They have as much funk as the absolutely funkadelic Pond (try stop your foot from tapping while listening to ’45’) and as much sun-kissed bliss as the masters Tame Impala. Their riffs are a little more angular, a little sharper than the all out shoe-gaze moments on Tame Impala’s 2012 magnum opus ‘Lonerism’. Not to say our old friend reverb isn’t consigned to the bench, just the guitar lines are more recognizably intricate, more precise. It all makes for a delicate, yet piercingly clear sound, a band vigorously aware of how they want to sound. Away from the sounds of Australia, the band could also be described as ‘Birmingham tropical’ after that long line of Midlands bands who popped up earlier in the decade (Peace, Swim Deep, JAWS).
Jess Zanoni’s vocals are breathless, highly evocative yet in contradiction as soothing as voices come. Think of the clarity and alluring vocals of Little Dragon‘s Yukimi Nagano with all that tone and flavour. They lift the band’s overall sound distinguishing them from the pack. They may not be as revolutionary as their Czech namesake nevertheless Arbes do what they do with an aplomb and elegance that will see them attract much more attention in the near future.
Our Broken Record 