Apricot Rail
Surry Hills
Hidden Shoal Recordings

Apricot Rail is a multi-instrumental pop sextet based in Perth, Western Australia. Ambrose Nock (guitar), Jack Quirk (guitar, keyboards/electronics), Matthew Saville (drums, glockenspiel), Daniel Burt (bass, percussion), Mayuka Juber (clarinet/flute) and - new member - Justin Manzano (guitar/electronics) make a steady bunch delivering a dreamy web of soft and gentle melodic post-rock. This is the follow up to their self-titled debut album from 2009, which was an album receiving lots of thumbs up in the press worldwide.

"Surry Hills" is a blooming, flowering track, almost like a glass of rich red wine (Australian, of course). A flute and a glocken-spiel guides the mild guitars. It's a very sweet and harmonic song, and it's a promising sign for what'll come next. To quote Drum Media: "...what genre-defining bands like Explosions in the Sky take eight or nine minutes to do Apricot Rail are capable of in three and a half." Well, "Surry Hills" clocks in at a little less than 5 minutes, but the point is clear.

Copyright © 2011 Håvard Oppøyen