The Great Spy Experiment Are Back With Two Indie-Rock Anthems That Don’t Miss A Step

The Great Spy Experiment are back after eight years (Credit: Fadly Salleh)

It’s a dream come true for anyone who’s had a Class ‘A’ love affair with this band. Like the phoenixes of the scene they are, The Great Spy Experiment have relit the torch with a comeback after an eight-year hiatus. Stalwart gig-goers hold fond memories of the seminal indie-rock quintet that first blazed through the circuit in the mid-2000s, firmly and deservingly becoming a fixture with offerings from their Flower Show Riots debut record. With nationwide fame and global festival performances, The Great Spy Experiment took on the mantle of Singapore’s indie-rock champions in an age when guitar music reigned around the world.

The band’s return is a piece of news that few placed on their Bingo list of 2023. Over the past few years, some of its members had partaken in other musical projects, such as bassist Khairyl Hashim and his stint in Riot !n Magenta, as well as frontman Saiful Idris who’d become a house music producer and label owner of SRNDR Records. But the much-awaited reunification of the band is truly what the fans yearned for, and it was a mountain of hype that paid off at their recent comeback performance at Baybeats 2023. Registration tickets for their fourth appearance at the esteemed regional music festival were wiped out, illustrating the enormity of the fanbase that clearly hasn’t dissipated.

The band retain their original lineup of Magdelene Han, Fandy Razak, Khairyl Hashim, Song and Saiful Idris (Credit: Fadly Salleh)

But it wasn’t just their Baybeats performance that marked the band’s revival. On the same weekend, The Great Spy Experiment released a double single, Sanctuary / Secrets. And if you’re afraid that these indie titans have lost their spark, one listen is all you’ll need to flip that fear. On the contrary, they sound as mega as ever.

On “Sanctuary”, you have an immense sound that continues to fit the gargantuan star power of the band; still radiant, still blinding. Saiful’s unblemished voice slings us back to the 2000s, keyboardist Magdelene Han stirs in an entrancing, descending four-note hook, and then you have the scaling guitars of Song coupled with the boisterous drumwork of Fandy Razak, giving the song a wild, euphoric temperament like an animal uncaged.

“Secrets”, on the other hand, exudes a darker nature and a more downcast edge, with lyricism addressing unspoken truths: “Unending lines / As long as the summer sun / The giants that linger / How they burn in the light”. It marches with more of a weathered swagger than a spring in its step, but it saunters with a maturity with nothing to prove to no one. Yet it still finds time to soar, with a crushing coda that would make an excellent air-punching, sweat-glazed set-closer.

In just two songs and with more hopefully more on the horizon, the band are able to coolly muster a sound that’s classic Great Spy – anthemic indie-rock bravado with wind-swept flair and charisma in spades.