Listen: alt-J – Fitzpleasure

There are very few things as irritating as a band with symbol for a name. You’ll have to work very hard to make up for the almost unforgivable aesthetic mistake of calling your band, say, †††.

Alt-J were initially suffixing their name with a little triangle. Sigh. Thankfully, though, they are amongst a small handful of acts with songs good enough to justify the stylistic self-indulgences. ‘Fitzpleasure’ is a fantastic, difficult song. Rarely sticking with an idea for more than a few bars, it is occasionally like an organ-backed monastic chant, then a lost Peter Gabriel track circa 4, then a Dirty Projectors song if Dirty Projectors were to have embraced distortion.

‘Fitzpleasure’ is out February 27 on Infectious, home to These New Puritans amongst others. We’re expecting an album later in the year.