Express Office Portico are a Nottingham-based indie pop band who have featured a few times on this blog before, going right back to 2022.

By Graeme Smith

Recently we shared their single Are You Yourself? and it’s the track that closes their debut EP Incommunicado. As the title suggests, it’s a collection that explores the idea of being unable to communicate with the world, or even to understand it.

That certainly feels like a relatable sentiment, and Express Office Portico bring it to life through their unique brand of indie synth pop. It’s a sound that’s been winning them fans up and down the country on a recent headline tour which took them to Manchester, London, Leicester and, of course, Nottingham, and that (possibly) includes Everton FC manager Sean Dyche, who watched them perform at Nottingham’s Hockley Hustle.

Across five tracks we get fully acquainted with what Express Office Portico are all about, with a few surprises to boot. Opener No One is laidback yet anxious, bringing a sound that isn’t unlike a modern day Fleetwood Mac while previously released single He Said, She Said gives us punchy electro pop as fiery as the lovers’ argument it depicts with its lyrics.

The EP is completed by previously unreleased tracks In Swim and Guillotine which respectively provide dreamy introspection and pensive melancholy before the aforementioned Are You Yourself closes the EP with a slow-building tale of generational habits and finding one’s place in the world.

With this debut EP, Express Office Portico are marking themselves out as ones to watch on the UK indie scene. Their sound is equal parts deep and approachable. I predict big things for them this year.

Incommunicado was produced by Joshua Rumble, and mastered by Nick Watson at Fluid Mastering. It was written and recorded in the Old Chaplin Road side of Battery studios in Willesden, London, as well as in drummer Olly Watson’s house in Bottesford, Nottinghamshire. You can give it a listen below.