Institut Polaire and their freshest smiles decorated Beck’s Verandah after Camera Obscura had played, left with an easy task of continuing the shiny happiness, as if the Human Torch had been put in charge of a statewide bushfire. Spread out like sentries over the stage, poised for their unequivocally momentous parts, each member had the staid expression – the ease of playing that manifested in band skins that everyone wore seamlessly – of a group at the end of a tour, which they are.

And so, they busted out a typically picturesque Institut Polaire wall of melodious noise, which meant for the remaining throng heartbeat pulses of crisp pop, psych, tonk and folk. Somewhere around the violinist, trumpeter and guest trombonist there’s a hook that maybe wouldn’t feel alien being played by a piano accordion, while singer Erik Hecht notes, “I sat down with myself and I walked through my mi-i-ind” and the brass drapes everything in a golden glaze. While still new and only on the verge of their first release, with their greatest leaps ahead of them, Institut Polaire already have the capacity for grandiose, magnanimous pop.

by Matt Giles