Blue Bendy are a product of the same south London scene that has delivered bands including Black Midi and Black Country, New Road but they have long spoken of a desire to inject a dose of pop into the post-punk sound that has been brewing in the grubby backrooms of their adoptive city in the past half decade. Last year they released Motorbike, an EP that hinted at their avant-garde ambitions with its mix of theatrical maximalism and driving off-kilter melodies. Today they return with their first new music of the year in the form on "Cloudy," a brand new single released via Practise Music.
"Cloudy" is arguably the band's most ambitious song to date, a sprawling six-minute epic that plays with quiet/loud dynamics and provides vocalist Arthur Nolan with ample ground to drop references to the subjects tickling his brain. In no particular order they include audiobooks, unravelling on public transport, owning a "big fat house." and the need to make others proud.It's an overwhelming mix of words and music that eventually gives way to an anthemic ending that will surely make it a live favorite.
Speaking via email, the band say: “We’ve written a song to drive to. A song to express a run in with a monkey’s Instagram account. A song to tackle the thorny subject of purity dying and biting addiction. There’s clucking hens and audiobooks. Grand designs. Alarming genies. But amongst the seemingly sprawling subject matter of what is always a live favourite, the thing which takes precedence is us just trying to make you proud.”