Today's Best Band You've Never Heard Of: Listen to 'Princes' by Oscar and the Wolf

Here’s what it would sound like if SOHN, Drake and Phoenix had a threesome on a big pile of sequins, i.e. Very Tight.

I came across Oscar and the Wolf at a friend’s CMJ showcase last night, and the laughably bracing sensation of seeing a band you’ve never heard of hit a perfect set in a little dark room got sharper, heart to spine, with every song. Oscar and the Wolf is from Belgium and, it appears, as popular there as they’re destined to be once they hit the festival circuit in the States, and the comparison above is truly the best I can put it: they’ve got Phoenix’s broad melodies and inexplicably low-key exuberance, Drake’s colloquial and introspective swagger, and SOHN’s black-and-white powers of mesmerization. Half of their songs broke into a straight Darude-style trance build, the lead singer Max Colombie jumped offstage to dance with a rave couple, and the track above, “Princes,” has been in my head since.

Here’s another great one, called “Joaquim.”

Oscar and the Wolf’s debut album Entity came out in 2014 in Belgium, and although it is not particularly easy to listen to if you’re in the U.S., it is the safest of bets to assume you’ll be hearing more out of them.