As Ondas - Marés

Facts After a couple very limited cassette EPs, this is the much-anticipated 2016 debut album by As Ondas, a tri-lingual trio from London, who split their lyrics between English, Spanish and Portuguese, the latter language being where their name comes from (As Ondas means "the waves", if you're curious). Their sound is very simple: a sparse guitar/bass/drum line-up, with boy/girl vocals and very few layers of instrumentation. In fact, Moema barely even plays any chords on the guitar, generally opting more for singular note melodies, which just adds to the sparseness (which is frequently filled with Andrew's bass - the liveliest instrument on the record). Their sound is very reminiscent of some of the mid-period Unrest stuff (think Imperial FFRR-era), but the two bands they really remind me of are Yellow Fever and Orca Team, two bands who also excelled in simple yet powerful songs. This is a very interesting and intriguing album that improves on each listen.