“A sound caught between angular post-punk twitch and smooth pop grooves […] where a certain arrogance sits alongside vulnerability, the sense of a person in competition with themselves, their two halves struggling for dominance.” So we wrote of ‘Impasse’, a single from the forthcoming album Counterways by Naarm/Melbourne indie pop outfit Arbes. It was a fitting introduction to an album that leans into the full spectrum of sonic possibility in an effort to chart the tension which exists within our efforts to love and be loved in a world of stilted communication. “Counterways reflects the multiplicity of emotional memory,” explains lead Jess Zanoni. “It’s both confession, and a fear of this confession. Desire is the throughline across the record, manifesting in many conflicting selves.”
With the album’s release via Third Eye Stimuli Records and Earth Libraries looming, Arbes have returned with a brand new single, ‘One Metaphor’. The record’s closing track, the song represents a suitably epic send-off. One which again combines rock and pop sensibilities and sees a textured, smouldering opening morph into something altogether more intense, the angular guitars and ethereal vocals again offering that trademark juxtaposition which marks the collection. And that’s not the only thing which keeps the audience guessing, with the tempo shifting at the drop of a hat and the mood evolving from dreamy spaciousness to layered complexity and back again.
