Simply put, The Armed have been one of the most interesting bands on our radar’s for years, with a dizzying array of tunes that range from futurist hardcore to contemplative jazz and junkyard-levels of heaving, musclebound noise rock.
Of course, it’s not just the tunes, with the band playing a pretty fantastic game of cat and mouse for a few years with the press, but in recent years the band’s paired down on the espionage and instead have seemed focused on opening up their musical horizons.
Last year’s Perfect Saviors was a thrilling, fairly diverse trip through a totally different side of The Armed that included a lot more pop friendly elements. It sounds polarizing, and perhaps there is an element of mischief there seeing as the band purposely contrasted “Liar 1,” one of their most popular traditional hardcore songs with a followup that sounds a hell of a lot more like Spoon, or even Prince as the album evolves. Divisive as it may be, overall the album was far from a one trick pony and served as another victory for a band that’s already been slaying it on their own terms for over a decade.
So we were pretty stoked when the band dropped their latest single “NEW! Christianity,” which seemed to take elements from their last several albums and compress them into a lean, mean, and semi-euphoric new chapter.
Check it out below:
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At first we were a little concerned that this would be an EP of “Everlasting Gaze” covers as in the song originally performed by The Smashing Pumpkins. We actually love that song, but it just would have been a weird thing to sit through, and our suspicions are somewhat grounded in the reality that somehow this is still the same band that covered Stone Temple Pilots quite faithfully, while turning at least one Smashing Pumpkins song into an unrecognizable chemical fire.
Luckily, this EP sticks out on both sides – the first half of the EP for other reasons entirely, featuring three new and/or unreleased songs that almost feel like a linear journey. The Armed typically packs so much into one song thematically that there’s not necessarily an emphasis on connecting the songs in a traditional front-to-back experience, but it seems they might have played with that here. The way “Puzzler” leads into the new single is subtle but seems intentional, and not in a conspiratorial way, just in a totally normal, future jazz meets alt-punk hardcore, saxophones and progressive pop kind of way that climaxes with “Martyr Song.” In fact, by the end of “Martyr Song,” we’re reminded of the Princess Goes remix they did with Patrick Shiroishi before he became a full-time member of the band, and the idea that indeed, ultra-jazz would be a potential reality for them.
The other half is compelling as well, although there’s always going to be people who just don’t get into remixes. We don’t have that problem, and the things that Water from Your Eyes, IDLES, and Model/Actriz do with “Sport of Form,” one of our favorite songs from Perfect Saviors, are surprisingly diverse, giving fans a much appreciated parallel experience. If you’re a fan of band’s triptych of Only Love, Ultrapop, and Perfect Saviors,, you’re going to feel right at home with the noise – we know we do.
Get it on Bandcamp here.
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