If you hadn’t heard the kind of stuff Astaaq Ahmed (he’s behind The Earflower Experiment) puts out, his new single ‘They Can Never See’ would be a nice little advertisement for it. Bruce Lee Mani brings some real personality to the tune, but at its core, it’s an interesting little mix of downtempo, indie rock and maybe even a tiny bit of prog. That sounds like far too many cooks on paper, but what Astaaq does is treat each of these influence with respect, making sure sounds don’t step on each other’s toes. This produces good results.

Even though his voice isn’t particularly soaring or strong, he uses it in the right way, keeping things clear and within his range. The song, however, starts with its chords, and they are the quiet star of the show. The song gives you a bit of a chill vibe to begin with; just vocals and keys (some listeners might recognize shades of the vocal melody as being a bit familiar), but when the groove kicks in, it definitely isn’t what one would expect. It’s double-time. There is absolutely no indication and almost no chance it could work, but it does. Suddenly the song is high-energy, high-tempo, and when Bruce’s guitars come in with tons of colour, the track really does come into its own. It’s rather short at just over three minutes, but they manage to pack in a lovely little solo, some strings and a short little outro. The song reaches a crescendo towards its end which is quite satisfying; ‘They Can Never See’ takes a few liberties that pay off overall. A good listen.