Emergent Melbourne indie outfit Osaka barrelled out of obscurity and into our hearts with their debut single Vessel, and today's release of follow-up effort Weights, premiering today on theMusic.com.au, only serves to further establish the up-and-comers as a group on whom to keep a very keen eye.
Weights is a hugely infectious proposition, its verses unabashedly evocative of Antidotes-era Foals — all clean-channel, sharp'n'fiddly guitars and Yannick-esque vocal utterances — while its chorus opens up into catchy-pop territory by way of gang-ish back-up vocals, splashy, hi-hat-driven drums and a heightened sense of urgency that sets in-thrall toes, hips and heads into helpless motion. There's an additional layer at play, too, with frontman Edvard Hakansson indicating in a statement that there are darker undertones to the track than you'd expect at first listen.
"It talks about carrying someone or something’s weight," he said, "and what would happen if you just allowed the weight to crush you, or if you gave up on why you carried it."
There are familiar sounds here, to be sure, but Osaka have drawn on diverse and disparate enough influences to rise above being derivative to achieve a sound that is, yes, still in development in terms of 'finding itself', if you want to get vague about it, but it's a more than solid enough foundation on which to base their unique identity in a bustling independent scene.
Weights, like Vessel before it, is taken from Osaka's debut EP, Manoeuvres. If you want to catch them in action, they'll be announcing live shows in the near future.
See Osaka's Facebook page for more information about their upcoming activities.
