A Band of Bees (The Bees) – Octopus
A Band of Bees, known simply as The Bees in the UK are a collective that dig deep into rock’s past for their influences. Buffalo Springfield, The Beatles, Bob Marley, etc. I’ve been a big fan of The Bees since their stellar album Sunshine Hit Me was given to me by a friend way back in 2003, and they provided a soundtrack to most of my summer in Seattle as I checked out their album Free the Bees three times from the Seattle Public Library throughout the summer. It’s vintage rock for the modern age and I love it. I told my dad about them today and said they had a real Beatles feel to them, but the more we listened to it, the less it felt like the Beatles and the more it felt like a myriad of rock bands from the 60’s and 70’s that defined those decades as far as music was concerned.
The Bees’ music is full of horns, jangly guitar, and harmonies galore and songs like The Ocularist, my favorite from Octopus, even find them singing in another language. I rarely use the word “rock” when describing a band’s sound anymore because what does that really even mean anymore? Bands like The Bees are the main culprits in this problem with their ability to pay homage so well to a particular era of music while establishing a sound that is still uniquely their own. Stand-outs are plenty on The Bees’ latest release, but I’d start with “The Ocularist” and “Got to Let Go” first, as those of a few of the year’s best.
[...] I may have missed the love train on this one by some few weeks, but it seems my own love pact was sealed when these first keys [...]