Listen: Arthur Beatrice - "What We Hoped to Achieve"

Fronted by dual vocalists Orlando Sheppard and Ella Girardot, emerging London (sm)art-pop quartet Arthur Beatrice -- their moniker a twist, of course, on the name of the late American actress Bea Arthur -- are keeping things pretty sketchy to the point of secrecy. Nearly no music, press, pictures or actual bio. But we do have one song via the video (unembeddable, unfortunately) for "What We Hoped to Achieve" and despite being a single camera shot in a studio with mediocre lighting the sound is remarkably good -- and so is the six-minute song. A Facebook blurb refers to the band's "heart aching mini-epics of brutal beauty, pitching harsh lyrical hooks against a glorious expanse of piano and melting vocals" while The Guardian's Paul Lester astutely sees a cross between The Smiths (when Sheppard sings) and The Sundays (when Girardot sings). Bottom line: a shining, shimmering example of cooly detached, progressive -- and distinctly British -- indie pop.

Audio stream removed at the request of artist management. Embed video due soon. For now, link to the video above.