Listen: CATHEDRALS – “Harlem”

There’s nothing that someone digging up new music loves more than a band with a name that makes them downright impossible to search on Google. There are plenty of culprits, from great acts to some not so great. CATHEDRALS, the San Francisco duo who made waves last year with their debut single “Unbound”, definitely fit into the “great” category, so we’ll let them off.

Their second single, “Harlem”, is more of the same pop brilliance. From the second Brodie Jenkins’ vocals start piling up on one another, you know this is going to be pretty special. With a hell of a soulful pair of pipes, her voice, without any accompaniment, is exciting and entrancing in itself.

Throw it in with some spiky guitar riffs sitting surprisingly snug alongside trap beats, a pairing not commonly seen outside of a Sleigh Bells record, and the end result is a pretty special jam, especially when that guitar riff kicks in (oh, you’ll know the one. On first hearing it, it made me nearly fistpump the air). It’s a track full of sunny vibes; all wayfarers, denim jackets and a crate of beers in the park.