Okay, let’s talk about Blofeld Sands, straight out of Brighton with a debut single, ‘People.’ That’s the title, folks, not a directive. I mean, it kind of is, though, isn’t it? When I first hit play, it wasn’t the jangly guitars or the precisely placed drum fills that snagged my ear, but that singular word echoing in the verses: “loving people”. A simple phrase, right? Almost kindergarten. But, listen longer and it’s as if a thousand tiny hands are passing you warm cups of tea in the middle of a blizzard.

They’re singing about love, not the hearts-and-flowers kind, but the grit-in-your-teeth, hold-on-tight, ‘we’re-gonna-get-through-this’ love. Which, if you think about it, is exactly how the British always get through… everything. This feeling, this hopeful defiance in the face of whatever this crazy thing we call existence keeps throwing, it really gets under your skin, yeah? Not like a bad splinter. More like a perfectly formed memory. It’s a curious thing to achieve with just a few repeated words and infectious guitar chords. Makes you wonder if they know something we don’t.

Sometimes, my brain throws up random things – like did you know that the oldest map of the world didn’t even consider Europe to be “a thing.” It’s funny how the world keeps changing, keeps redrawing itself – kind of like hope, right? Always there to try and fill in the gaps. This song does that – fills gaps you didn’t even know you had. Blofeld Sands, by the sounds of this track, want to plant little seeds of goodness where the hard stuff took over.

There’s a particular simplicity to their approach; a refreshing, not-trying-too-hard-cool, if that makes sense. It’s a comfortable sort of sound, the kind that feels like driving with the windows down on a long, open road that leads… somewhere? Maybe nowhere, I don’t know. I feel like this music would work just as well in a bustling indie club in Camden as it would playing softly in the background at a rainy afternoon picnic in the park. A lot of music aims for this type of emotional depth, but so often, the sincerity gets lost somewhere in the mix. Not here though.

‘People’ is less a statement, more a quiet observation. Like a friend looking you square in the eye, and saying: ‘we’ll be alright, I reckon.” Maybe that’s all the world needs right now. A small nudge, a reminder that, underneath the chaos, it’s all about, well, ‘loving people’. Doesn’t sound too bad when you say it like that, eh?

CLICK HERE to pre-save the song. The single will be out on 3rd Feb 2025.

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