There’s a new British indie band that I’m really excited about, which doesn’t happen that often these days. They’re called Alt-J (or ∆, if you want to be annoying) and “Tessellate” is the song which has hooked me most, a darkly seductive song involving sharks, the line “triangles are my favourite shape” sung in a voice just the right side of too affected, and shifting trip-hop like beats. Its patient evolution and the resolution of tension as it hits the chorus are lovely. The debut album An Awesome Wave is seriously impressing me as a whole, too.
I guess ‘new UK indie band sounds a bit like Radiohead’ doesn’t promise that much unusual, but it’s new territory in that it’s In Rainbows and The King of Limbs that they take after - songs that feel like rock songs on the surface but have rhythm and atmosphere at their forefront and subtly morph into all kinds of new shapes. The other recent album that I’d say is an even closer reference point is the rusted post-industrial beauty of These New Puritans’ Hidden, though Alt-J do with harmonised singing what they did with brass bands.
