Apache Beat "Blood Thrills"

New York has pretty much given us its fill of rock bands posing as disco lovers. Or so we’d like to think. It was fun getting blitzed and dancing — and for some, even trying to rave — but that feeling is just so spent right now and I think at this point everyone just wants to come down — and by that I mean crash into spiral of despair and self-loathing. But we still wanna dance. Don’t think we don’t wanna dance.

So for this new wave we have NYC’s Apache Beat to look up to and engulf with all of our obsessive worship. A band that has cast spells on every tastemaker looking to beat the next pesky blogger to the punch, this five-piece are still very much in touch with their city’s rich history — y’know, primarily 1978 to ’88 — but eschew everything we’re tired of (verse-chorus-verse-chorus-disco breakdown-chorus-explosion!) and re-introduce elements of yore that will have every 16-year-old hipster thinking they’ve found the Holy Grail of cool.

Signed to the unbelievably on-point Summer Lovers Unlimited, which seems to swoop in and grab every hot new act before anyone knows them, Apache Beat impressed everyone that heard last year’s mystifying "Tropics,” earning a slot on Deerhunter’s fall tour, receiving some illuminating remixes by CFCF and Bitchee Bitchee Yeah Yeah, big name-drops by Klaxons and gushing press in every outlet that mattered.

Their follow-up single "Blood Thrills” is a hypnotic orgy of exotic sounds: droning feedback, undulating synths, tribal off-beats, slinky bass lines, slicing guitars and the commanding pipes of Ilirjana Alushaj, who’s as seductive as she is ominous. The rhythm may not light an immediate inferno under you like even the worst disco can, but the mid-tempo vibe builds and then a crescendo arrives that kick-starts the groove and your sweat pores.

Apache Beat "Blood Thrills”

Buy the limited edition seven-inch here.

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