South Arcade are an English band. Formed in Oxford in 2021, the band went viral for videos of their band practices and performed at BBC Radio 1's New Music Live in Halifax, West Yorkshire in November 2024. Their 2005 EP was inspired by various genres and artists from the 2000s and was received positively by Distorted Sound Magazine. Their works are usually described as pop punk or alternative rock and have been likened to those by Pale Waves, Avril Lavigne, and Bring Me the Horizon.
South Arcade were formed in 2021[1] and comprise Harmony Cavelle, Harry Winks, Ollie Green, and Cody Jones.[2] The band met at university in Guildford before moving to Cavelle's hose in Oxford.[3] Their earliest gigs came from jams in a garage.[4] After naming themselves after a sign at Westgate Oxford,[5] they released "Danger" in 2023,[6] followed by "Silverlight" that September[7] and "Nepo Baby" in January 2024.[8] That April, the band released "Riptide" on BKM and LAB Records, a track about a friend's struggles;[9] the following month, "Danger" exceeded one million streams on Spotify, prompting the band to announce a tour.[6] They then released "Stone Cold Summer" in June[10] and "How 2 Get Away With Murder" in August;[11] the latter was accompanied by a cartoon involving a rivalry between South Arcade and the fictional band North Arcade.[3]
By October 2024, the band had gone viral on Instagram and TikTok for videos of their band practices; these variously depicted the band's men adjusting sound levels, adding sound effects to recordings, and attacking each other with water guns.[12] That month, they released "Moth Kids", a track they had started shortly after forming but only finished after their first tour.[13] In November,[13] they performed at BBC Radio 1's New Music Live in Halifax, West Yorkshire. The band set up for this with less than a minute to spare as they realised with 34 seconds remaining that a laptop with a click track had not been set up properly, prompting Green to have to transfer files onstage while the presenter was still announcing them.[2] They then released the six-track EP 2005 in December 2024, which contained all five of the singles they had released that year and a title track[4] and was reviewed positively by Distorted Sound Magazine,[4] followed by a music video for the song the month after.[14]
Artistry
Reviewing a February 2024 As Everything Unfolds support slot at The Exchange in Bristol, Jack Ridsdale of Distorted Sound Magazine described the band's wares as "snot-nosed pop punk" and likened "Unaware"'s melodies to those of Pale Waves;[15] around the same time, LeftLion's Ben Blissett wrote of a support slot for the same band at Rescue Rooms in Nottingham that South Arcade blended "some metal elements with pop punk" and incorporated "guitar riffs which were reminiscent of Avril Lavigne but basslines that could belong in a much heavier band like Bring Me the Horizon".[16] Writing in October 2024, Chris Attridge of the BBC described them as a "pop/alt rock" band[17] and Isabelle Winter of The Oxford Blue described them as an alternative rock band.[18] That January, Ailsha Davey of ScreenRant described their sound as "retrofuturistic synthwave".[19]
The band have cited inspiration from music of the 2000s including Avril Lavigne, Gwen Stefani, Limp Bizkit, and Linkin Park;[5] for 2005, they cited pop punk, nu metal, Britney Spears, Gwen Stefani, Limp Bizkit, and Linkin Park.[2] The EP's "How 2 Get Away With Murder" was specifically inspired by Dexter, as Cavelle had binge-watched the show shortly before recording,[11] while its video was inspired by Scott Pilgrim.[3]
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