Orca Team

***Restraint. The callous insults thrown into the faces of dear friends and relatives, while you sit at the dinner table holding back hot tears, too ashamed to stand up to your drunken uncle at the holiday party. Enter ORCA TEAM’s debut album. Traffic lights sway in the wind of a forgotten town. The beach is near but pine trees line the shore and it’s never warm enough to swim. Orca Team’s Restraint is smooth and smothered in disappointment. A voice, barely audible, heard in the wind while wrapped in a windbreaker skipping stones into the waves. At the end of the night, you can find Orca Team standing in the corner, as they slyly try to seduce your girlfriend’s younger brother. They only recently found the self-confidence to try winning a heart and when they leave, you go with them. Restraint is the tension found on a first date. You refrain from speaking your mind; your posture is impeccable and decorum is priority. Orca Team creates the soundtrack of heartbeats under streetlights, and under crisply ironed shirts dipped in sweat. Orca Team is ‘arctic surf,’ the music echoes minimalist post-punk but within layers of reverb and unfocused yearning. It is the soundtrack for a city where there isn’t enough social lubrication to get anyone to notice your woeful desires. The melody slides down the neck of a bass guitar while the drums and guitar fills the gaps; only when necessary. Picture them playing unaffectedly in the back of a restaurant as you realize you’re no better off than where you began.