Prediction is largely a losing man’s game.
While there might not yet be enough evidence to say “there’s something in the water” in New Zealand, it’s safe to argue that the country so distant from American shores may be making a habit of grabbing real estate on American pop charts. Lorde continues to captivate the public imagination and her story hasn’t gone truly wide yet (a notion suggested by the fact that breakout hit “Royals” continues to pick up momentum in sales and radio and debut album Pure Heroine sold an impressive though still comparatively modest 128,000 copies in its opening week). She’s hurtling towards ubiquity, but, to be sure, there are breathing, music-loving human beings who’ve yet to hear that she’s never seen a diamond in the flesh.
It’s impossible to say what will come of New Zealand duo BROODS–hell, we’ve hardly even met them–but it’s safe to say that the country they share with Lorde isn’t short on talented pop acts.
BROODS reaches us like one of last year’s biggest online success stories, London Grammar. The duo leads with music, leaving information scant. Even for the most obsessive detectives among us, the cupboard is (at the moment) depressingly bare of illuminating tidbits. They’re from a duo from Auckland, New Zealand consisting of Georgia and Caleb Nott (presumably brother and sister) and, in July, they went to a James Blake concert:
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Image via BROODS on Facebook
Whatever intrigue BROODS draws from mystery (whether manicured, product of patience, or simply Facebook-update neglect) recedes into the background the arresting moment their debut single “Bridges” begins to play.
“Bridges” is pained pop at its best, gorgeously produced without ever being overstated, building to satisfying peaks and giving way to carefully constructed valleys. Thoroughly modern, but never vacuous or empty (thanks to sharp writing and a chorus that smartly draws on repetition and an accessible, immediate image), it’s an arresting debut that arrives fresh from the fog, a wholly unexpected delight (at least around these parts). Listen to it below.
