[imagesource: YouTube / Fleet Music]

Alt-J have made some pretty cool music.

‘Left Hand Free’ and ‘Breezeblocks’ are both bangers, as the kids might say, and ‘Taro’ is underrated.

The English indie rock band’s sound has been accused of being a little samey, though, which is where this truly superb parody video comes in.

From way back in 2015, via a band called Fleet, comes ‘how to write an Alt-J song’.

Featuring Matthew Rogers and Ethan Soil looking extremely baked, some rice crackers, and what is actually a catchy tune, the video has been viewed in excess of 12,5 million times:

Fleece is an indie quartet out of Canada, with three albums to their name.

The most recent, Stunning and Atrocious, was released in August, but they’re well aware that they’ll always be associated with their parody.

In 2018, Rogers and Soil spoke with Exclaim about the viral journey:

The pair initially resented their viral fame. “The reason why I didn’t like it is because I felt judged by a lot of people that were in the Montreal music scene,” says Soil. “Obviously there was some jealousy and resentment, but people were always judging us, like ‘They’re only famous because of this video. They didn’t earn it, they didn’t work hard for it.'”

Adds Rogers, “It wasn’t like an embarrassment, but it was this classic ‘serious artist releases something, but the only thing that someone likes is their commercial jingle’ thing. This is something we did in two minutes and this is what everyone loves? I think it was kinda confusing for me for a while being like, ‘Why is it that stuff I work really hard on doesn’t get any attention but this does?'”

They have since made peace with that fame.

Alt-J has never reached out, but they’re definitely aware of the parody as they changed their Twitter profile picture to a rice cake in 2015.

The highest compliment, given the circumstances.

[source:exclaim]