Relatively fresh off the starting blocks, The Orchestra (For Now) have already become one of the capital’s most exciting cult prospects. There’s been a sense of boundless possibility surrounding these Windmill regulars since before they’d even released a single note of music, and the band have since sold out Rough Trade exclusives and dominated festival main stages at Green Man and End of the Road. Following on from their impressive debut EP at the start of the year, the band return with ‘Hattrick’, a single that packs more into five minutes than most bands manage across a full album.
Self-described purveyors of “London prog,” they thrive on a maximalist approach – avant-garde rock theatrics colliding with classical interplay, jazz flourishes, and post-punk intensity. This time around, the saturation and contrast are cranked up, the darker corners accentuated, and the single feels like it could be the score to a horror chase scene – brave listening material for anyone alone in the dark.
‘Hattrick’ begins with intricate, maze-like instrumentation: cinematic strings and a driving rhythm section swirl around Joe Scarisbrick’s unsettling first-person lyrics. Neurotic twisting and turning keeps the track in constant flux, placing confessional stories in weird, extreme, sometimes imaginary settings. Even the accompanying video feels like a fever dream: a ritualistic bath of beer, and a forest full of organs in which Scarisbrick finds a cigarette that gets him dazed before stumbling into a goblin bartender. It’s another reminder of the strange theatricality at the heart of their project.
It’s the second half, though, where ‘Hattrick’ gets interesting. The band accelerate into chaos, lurching between jagged guitar lines, soaring strings, and shouts of cultural references spat out like ritual incantations. Shamanic vocal power rises and falls, giving way to brooding verses before flaring up again in waves of unrestrained experimentation. It’s intense, thrilling, and genuinely unpredictable – fans of Geordie Greep will find familiar joy in never quite knowing where the track is going, only that the destination will be fantastical.
With ‘Hattrick,’ The Orchestra (For Now) continue to establish just how exciting they are – an exceptionally admirable debut run from a band setting the bar dizzyingly high for whatever raucous release comes next.
Words: Donovan Livesey Photo: Chloe Hancock