Octopus
by The Bees

The Bees are a bearded six-piece hailing from the Isle of Wight, which is, as I discovered an island located off the southern coast of England and is an excellent spot to find dinosaur fossils.

Octopus is the band’s third album and opens with the Beatle-esque Who Cares What the Question Is? I can think of one question that they should care about: why does this sound so much like a Beatles rip off? The country rock-tinged Love In The Harbour is strangely reminiscent of Bon Jovi’s Blaze of Glory, which presumably is not a good thing. Left Foot Stepdown follows and is a wonderfully convincing reggae gem. It enticed me to redirect the hand that was hovering over the power button to twist the volume knob instead. Left Foot Stepdown is getting a lot of student radio airtime and for good reason, with its irresistible horns and whacked out delays this track really is superb. Unfortunately the bubblegum reggae of Octopus’s third single Listening Man is hard to swallow as is the nauseatingly, novel last track End Of The Street.



The eclectic influences and 70’s sounding recording is typical of these post, post-punk revival, indie, geek-rock [ha-ha] times but The Bees have released a patchy album that’s fortunately saved by the sublime Left Foot Stepdown. Mind you, it is easy to imagine that the country-twang/jazz/reggae vibe of this record could well be warming the cockles of many op-shop, brown cardigan-wearing, Wellington-dwelling, trustafarian hearts.