News Victories At Sea

You get a lot of talk of songs being ‘anthemic’ or bands returning to the studio to make a new album (usually Kasabian) saying that they’re going to make ‘anthems’. It’s all useless at the end of the day - the crowds are still just going to want the latest indie band to play ‘Wonderwall’ or a song that sounds like ‘Wonderwall’ so they can get a bit pissed, tell their friends about it and slowly watch their lives tick away, unaware of the pointlessness of it all.

Victories At Sea don’t seem like the types to be crossing off the days to the next Beady Eye gig - in fact, it wouldn’t be much of a surprise if they didn’t know which Gallagher brother was which. So whilst people think an anthem is something you can hold your bottled beers up to and sing along with mates to at the end of another tepid indie clubnight, Victories At Sea are redefining the term to suit their own brilliant mould.

‘SWIM’, if you haven’t heard it, has all the hallmarks of a classic in waiting - a slow build lasting all of about 10 seconds before they get bored and absolutely tear into the meat of the song. If you’re looking for reference points, it’s best to start off with those synth math-pop bits that Foals made famous, only hear they’re amped ridiculous amounts, creating the kind of boundless atmosphere Yannis and co. only started to discover by their second album.

At their best, Victories At Sea are jittery and panic stricken, but backed with the courage and conviction to make a song big enough to get people going wild - as they did at their recent Manchester show. Maybe if people can stop requesting ‘Champagne Supernova’ to patently underskilled DJs as they piss away the money they’ve earned during the week long enough to give them a listen, humanity might have a hope.

SWIM by victories at sea