A rumination on your parents’ renunciation of youthful folly in favour of arduous responsibility doesn’t necessarily sound like the most conventional of starting points for as exoteric a pop song as Real Life, but it’s the deft way in which Arthur Beatrice balance joyous genius and readily digestible jingles that has evidently, ever since their humble London beginnings, set the four-piece apart. And now, following on from incontrovertibly superlative comeback track Who Returned, forever-irreproachable vocalist Ella Girardot continues to luxuriate in the limelight, her voice swathed in empathy and deference entwined as it sits pretty atop a production demonstrating genuine maturity; the sort amassed, perhaps, from Orlando Leopard’s indistinct involvement in How Big, How Blue, How Beautiful. But, however big both Real Life and Who Returned before it may already sound, we really can’t wait to hear either one live; sooner, rather than later…

Real Life is lifted from Arthur Beatrice’s forthcoming sophomore recording, Keeping the Peace (available May 27^th via Open Assembly Recordings / Polydor), while they play the ICA on February 18^th.