Do not read past this point until you’ve hit play on “Animal” and been totally swallowed by that bolshie fanfare of an intro. ELEL’s new single is too big to try and do justice to with words although, with no less than eight members, that was perhaps always going to be the case.
Done it? Okay, then let’s talk. Having already made waves with earlier singles “40 Watt” and “Kiss Kiss,” the Nashville band’s latest single is set to soundtrack everybody’s summer as this year’s favorite ‘indie-gem turned viral-hit’. It’s tough to not seeing it happening with their smile-inducing brand of world pop combining huge pop hooks with a more experimental liberalism when it comes to arrangement.
On “Animal,” band leader Ben Elkins said, “I love writing music from my imagination, and sometimes that can be energetic and grand. But my lyrics are usually based on everyday life, which is much calmer. It’s exciting to let those two versions of my reality meet each other in a song like this.”
Expect to be hearing a lot more from ELEL with the group set to release their debut album, Geode, later in the year via independent label Mom + Pop Music (Courtney Barnett, DMAs, Polica).