Arctic Lake’s ‘Silver Pendant’ Is A Step Closer To A Settled Sound

For a band that’s been around for almost a decade now, it seems astonishing that Arctic Lake has yet to release a full-length album. This reticence might be down to the fact they’ve never seemed to settle on a fixed style: their sound has shifted from slow, London Grammarish ballads like ‘Limits’ through a series of high-profile collaborations with deep house producer Lane 8 (‘Road’, ‘Don’t Let Me Go’). It’s a journey that’s allowed the duo to test different approaches, bringing them gradually into the fold of a smooth, slick electro-pop sound that they’re still continuing to refine.

Their new single ‘Silver Pendant’ is no exception. Buoyed by a squelchy, bouncy bass and freewheeling synths, it’s reminiscent of artists like Shura – shameless nostalgists who lean more into dreamy-eyed, lustlorn melancholia than hair-tossing disco. And although this is a song ostensibly about love and sex, it’s the kind of love that’s yearning and unfulfilled, the kind that’s “jealous when I’m off of your mind”.

This feeling of insecurity comes through in little experimental touches as well – not least a lenient approach to time signatures, with bridges and verses rounding off unexpectedly, or continuing for an extra bar. It’s a disquieting effect, particularly in a song which is otherwise so deliberately conventional in its structure and timbre. And it suggests that even now, the duo is still pushing towards a new style – one that’s just out of reach of their ongoing experiments.

There’s another EP (now their fifth) titled ‘How Do You Make It Look So Easy’ in the pipeline for this autumn, and ‘Silver Pendant’ definitely whets the appetite for that. As for a full album anytime soon – well, you can’t have it all, can you?

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Words: Tom Kingsley

Photo Credit: Diana Terlemezyan