Amity Beach :: "Sunday Nights to Infinity" and "Avalanches" [Premiere]

We are proud to hold the world premiere of the latest double-sided single from Amity Beach, a band with a name that evokes one of the most famous tropes of summer - a marauding, homicidal shark set against the pragmatic and alarmist town sheriff. These are, after all, the two narrative thrusts of the season: societal moralisms in direct conflict with unrestrained id, anarchy at war with the social contract, a shark come to terrorize your town. Amity Beach manages to find a sweet medium here, structured pop constructions with nothing but brilliant carbonated chaos in the middle. On A-Side, "Sunday Nights to Infinity", Amity Beach finds itself at the intersection of slamming guitars and ebullient keys, a late-night anthem about backs pushed like bulwarks against mounting responsibilities. It is one part Surfer Blood, one part Fang Island - especially in the guitars in stomping second movement - like Los Campesinos, an attempt to sound like everything is happening all of the time. "Avalanches", the B-side, recalls Beulah, a horn-drenched summer jam engaged in perpetual lift-off. The band does nothing to declare a winner between these twin impulses to build and destroy, but instead of blindly rooting for the town, Amity Beach admits with two of the best songs of the summer that - just a little bit - we might be pulling for the shark too.

Randolph's Leap :: "Hermit"

Randolph's Leap are a Glasgow band overflowing with pop hooks and the kind of blighted brilliance on which Scotland has an effective monopoly. On "Hermit", lead track from their EP of the same name, the band sounds intensely like British stab at the horn-soaked pop that Beulah made deservedly famous in the previous decade. Think Stornoway with a bit more punch and a relentless pursuit of a chorus that twirls under its own melodrama. It is, like so much of this type of pop, about being lost and alone. Belle and Sebastian influences creep in at the corners, especially in the final movement where the band loses control in an exceptionally orderly fashion.