I came across Absent Elk a few months ago when I saw their cover of Girls Aloud’s The Loving Kind on Youtube, when they performed on Dermot O’Leary’s radio show – I thought they were really good. Around this time they were announced as one of the support acts for GA’s 2009 tour – a bit surprising for a guitar band, but there you go!
They’re on the tour now but now I’ve just come across their new single Sun and Water, to be released May 17th. Upsides – nice and epic, texturally varied. Downsides – can’t make out half the words (the singer is Norwegian, but that’s no excuse – could be my computer speaker quality though!), video isn’t terribly good – OK, so they probably don’t have a budget for that, but the bit where they show the other band members is really off-putting, especially as they aren’t the prettiest of musicians!
Here they are on Youtube:
And their The Loving Kind cover (the live version is better than the studio one they also have on their channel):
