"Let's Go Surfing" - The Drums

Beach party, anyone? Following the recent trend of blending 80's revival, indie guitar beats and minimal beauty, The Drums have created a song that sounds like a DJ battle between the Beach Boys and Peter Bjorn and John. "Let's Go Surfing" is not just a joyful clichéd twirl through caspardrillo-nostalgia; the echo-ey vocals and repeted lyrics add a somewhat stolen, rogueish element to the track. With chamber-rock authenticity along the same lines as Belle & Sebastian's "The Blues Are Still Blue" evolving alongside summerside Coral-like reminiscings, "Let's Go Surfing" is a catchy yet fleeting song.

The clapping and whistling present throughout the track gives it an amalgamated sepiatone; this is the musical equivalent of watching home videos of your childhood seaside holidays. The whole song eminates this sense that it was recorded on the sand, amongst the spray and salt of a rare sunny day in June (or that there wasn't that big a recording budget). The harmonic-vocals remind the listener of Hot Club de Paris' 2007 album, Pop Till It Drops but the shadowy riffs and stripped-down melodies present on "Let's Go Surfing" hark of 2009-chic.

Genius reccomends; The Big Pink, Bombay Bicycle Club, Wild Beasts, The Pains of Being Pure At Heart, The Rumble Strips

"Sigh No More" - Mumford & Sons

"Sigh No More" is a focused, emotionally charged track with echoes of Arcade Fire and Bob Dylan. Simple acoustic guitar accompanied by choir-like vocals give the song a celestial, religious quality; a modern hymn for the disillusioned generation. Although the band name could be lifted straight from a Dickens novel, the musical influences are clearly vested in heart-breaking specialists Anthony & The Johnsons, and take inspiration from Larrikin Love's dalliance with acoustic joy. Minimalistic genius, as demonstrated by the ghostly, haunting, pantheon sound of The xx,is taken and applied to more familiar ground (you won't find a single chorus about love on XX)

"Sigh No More" is a pared-down, melancholy song that has a gorgeous listenability to it. Although the first half is a inwards-dwelling soliloquy, the second half lifts itself out of the darkness in much the same way that "Sweet Disposition" rang out through the speakers and spoke directly to the listener. "Love will not betray/ dismay or enslave you/ it will set you free" spurs the song on with a hair-raising crescendo, and a coat-tailed bow at the last curtain.

Genius Reccomends: Jay Jay Pistolet; Marcus Foster; Bombay Bicycle Club; Miles Benjamin Anthony Robinson; Slow Club