For their first outing post-Foxes!, Adam Bell and Alan Grice appear to have channelled the twin influences of Friedrich Nietzsche and Stephen Malkmus. With their old band on hiatus, Bell and Grice have teamed up with Alan Odgers and Tom Matthews to form Octopuses, introducing themselves on ‘Sarcastic’ with the lyric: “If you stare long into the abyss, the abyss will stare back at you.” If that makes you feel like you’re in a Werner Herzog film, musically it’s incongruously jolly and deliciously lo-fi, with C86s and fuzzy guitars, while Matthews’ vocals have have something of post-Pavement Malkmus about them. There’s plenty here to delight Foxes! fans, and very possibly win some new ones too. ‘Sarcastic’ is out on July 22 on Big Salad Records.
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