It’s been over five years since we first heard of Armature, but it feels like even longer – we caught up with them about telecasters in 2019 for one of our first articles with the blog, right after the band released One Day World. Of course, much has changed since that year in particular, but one question remained nagging in the back of our minds.
“What happened to Armature?”
One Day World showed off a take on the math and post-rock worlds that we didn’t normally associate with bands from Seattle. It was snappier and quicker to the point, cutting through the region’s renowned and trademarked haze. Regardless, now we finally know what Armature has been doing since it dropped – tuning up for their self-titled debut, which just came out this weekend.
Opener “Concrete” hits hard immediately with an almost incomprehensible hook that’s gone before you know it, yet doesn’t break the barometer, thus setting the pace for Armature’s S/T in general. The record sounds brutally urgent, but not in a heavy way – think more Floral and Kaguu, but from the PNW. You could even get away with potential comparisons to Lilly Legit now that the piano and keys feature so much more prominently. Maybe a little Wave Mosaic too, except with guitars? There’s probably an argument for parallels between Armature’s S/T and Save Us From the Archon‘s Thereafter, but this record is easily the more hopeful and more math rock of the two, especially once we get into tracks like “Whale Lord” and acoustic epic “Honeysuckle.”
“Woodwork” definitely butts up against SUFTA territory with heavy amounts of shred, but even with guns blazing, Armature’s structure and dynamic never stretches unnaturally. The record closes with “Say You Want to Live,” which features some celebratory brass courtesy of Allison Martin, and we’ve gotta say, it’s triumphant as hell. If you like the bands we mentioned above, or just like exploring the growing ideas of post-math as a genre, Armature’s S/T is unquestionably worth your time.
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