Our Lost Infantry - The Arsonist / Scissorfight

This is as good a start from a new band as we’ve heard this year. Our Lost Infantry, an Aldershot quartet who we’ve been following for a while, release their new single on June 7th, and it is pretty much perfect.

A double A-side of ‘The Arsonist’ and ‘Scissorfight’ is the group’s debut single, and its ten minutes are practically bursting with promise. The band’s unpredictable yet immediate art-rock calls to mind several groups at once: Cursive, Grammatics, Los Campesinos! and Sigur Rós are the most obvious reference points.

The lead track contains one of the best choruses of the year to date, building from pulsing synth beginnings into a repeated refrain of ‘Stop starting fires that you cannot put out / You’ve seen yourself dying too many times to count’. A three-part harmony that can only be described as gorgeous closes the song in style. These guys can write hooks - and how.

‘Scissorfight’ meanwhile, is a six-minute mini-epic that features a good number of movements, transforming from brittle post-pop into abrasive and intense ivory-pounding, before fading away to transition into a widescreen slice of post-rock that is quite reminiscent of Arcade Fire (it’s that euphoric bassline). Then it reverts to the original chorus before a variation of the previous melody finishes proceedings.

Our Lost Infantry take quite an interesting approach to songwriting, one that shows them to be a band with ambitions. Such genre-hopping could be called mere posturing by some, but we’re having none of it. They’ve gotten off to the best possible start - and this isn’t something to be taken lightly. Trust us on that one.