At the heart of the UK’s music scene, the city of Manchester continues to deliver, with its latest export, Arkayla, deepening their exciting discography with four diverse tracks on their new EP, Back To Belle Vue.
Since the young band’s debut in 2023, they’ve wasted no time in making their mark, already racking up nearly 100,000 monthly Spotify listeners and putting out several tracks well-loved in the indie scene.
Back to Belle Vue marks an exciting new era for the Manchester four-piece, who only embarked on their first headline tour in May, and have since taken to stages at major festivals like Truck Fest, Latitude, and Kendal Calling throughout the summer.
The first of the two tracks of the EP to have been pre-released, the punky Run Kid throws us straight in with exciting drums and screaming electric guitars, a sort of high-energy bright rock the scene seems to have been missing for just too long. It’s already done nearly half a million streams on Spotify, and it’s unsurprising why – its infectious chorus ‘You gotta run, kid/Faster than you’ve ever done, kid’ is just the surface of the genuinely fun, rebellious sort of lyricism Arkayla are so successful at writing. Dylan Murphy’s drumming and the bounce of Joe Harley’s bass carry you so nicely through the song; you’re singing along with Cal Blakebrough before you know it. The track has already found the mainstream limelight, picked as the FIFA World Cup show theme song with James Corden, and I could imagine it running over the opening credits of some indie teen movie in the near future.
We take a tonal shift with Vivian, an almost Blossoms (a band Arkayla has previously supported) sound with some really tidy vocals on Blakebrough’s part, reminding me of an earlier track of theirs, 2024’s Ella Malone. The lyrics initially sound like a metaphor at best, and nonsense at worst– but it’s in fact the story of drummer Murphy’s great-grandfather, who was a zookeeper at the titular Belle Vue Zoo, and bitten by a venomous snake whilst his wife was heavily pregnant. As the story goes, his life was saved, and subsequently his daughter, Vivian, was named after the doctor who gave him the antidote. The song has a fittingly nostalgic, affectionate feel, melodic ‘la la’s marking the track and some beautiful acoustic layering with a touch of bass just subtle enough to notice, making an altogether touching tribute and great tune.
My Number feels like it encompasses all the reasons Arkayla is breaking out so rapidly in this indie rock scene– this unafraid, dynamic instrumental pairs beautifully with Blakebrough’s hazy summer vocals, the jamming acoustic guitar interspersed with a more developed electric one that already feels so signature to Arkayla. The band doesn’t restrict itself to one subgenre, and that’s why they feel so refreshing; you could tell me each track on this EP is from a different album, and I’d simply take your word for it. My Number takes a lot of the best of last year’s Fortune Teller, bordering on poppy but dragging us back to their rock roots now and then when the guitar of Finley Rubens pokes back in, or Dylan Murphy’s drums take centre stage. It’s got a real defined, dramatic ending to the song which I love, and you can almost hear where the applause will come thundering in as it peters out.
Closing the EP is Doba, the other pre-release, and it’s already not only my favourite of the EP but of their whole catalogue. I’m obsessed with its opening riff, which is echoed throughout, the way the guitars then come over the top, all the teeth-gritting, eye-squinting, head-shaking gnarliness it carries with it, which Blakebrough then sits on perfectly with his vocals. It might be the indie release of the year so far for me, and the extended metaphor of its lyricism goes a long way in helping that, too. The song’s eponym, Aleksander Doba, was a Polish voyager, known for crossing the Atlantic twice in just a kayak– and calls of ‘Doba, Doba, you’ve gone too far…’, ‘they’re making fools out of you and me’, and most triumphantly ‘we all think you’re a f–ing psycho!’ show how rock’n’roll the band really think Doba is. It’s such a fun stimulus, and once again so refreshing in a scene that’s caught a lot of heat recently for being obsessed with singing about cigarettes or tracksuit bottoms.
Arkayla have really impressed me with this EP, and they’ve got all the attributes of an act ready to truly shine. There’s this raw, sonic maturity unique for such a new band- lyrical depth, instrumental dynamism, the variety of sound you’d expect of a group with a decade of discography, not three years.
The release of this EP times perfectly with their upcoming sold-out headline tour, which sees them at twelve venues across the country – not to mention a main stage bill at Leeds Festival later this month that should get them the eyes they deserve. No doubt, each of these four tracks could make their way onto any setlist.
