Eliza and the Bear :: "Brother's Boat"

Essex, UK band Eliza and the Bear have redrafted gravity on expansive and hooky single, "Brother's Boat." Like a distended and outraged Edward Sharpe, the band traffics in the same always-be-rising orchestral pop first outlined by Polyphonic Spree and later darkened and perfected by Arcade Fire. "Brother's Boat" is more electric guitar driven than any of the aforementioned bands, they are also a perfect "indie crossover," the kind that makes A&R's from Columbia think romantically how this song might look in the trailer for whatever becomes next year's Beasts of the Southern Wild or, better, as the closing 25-seconds of an advertisement for a Nissan automobile. An intern should be scrambling down the hall from their cubicle before the final chorus; this is that good. The two driving lyrics, "just let it go," and "you left your family home," are as brutal as they are oblique, that kind of general, life-affirming pop onto which the listener can project a multitude of personal specifics. By the final, crashing conclusion, it is not just the arrangement that touches its outer markers, it is a band more than ready to expand beyond itself.