The Armed - 2011 Young & Beautiful

Band : The Armed

Album : Young & Beautiful

Release Year : 2011

Genre : Mathcore | Chaotic | Experimental

Tracklist :

1. Young & Beautiful
2. Mujahoudini
3. Pushing Daises
4. Maize Maze
5. You Have Died

The EP’s title track opens the EP in an eruption of snarling, Dillinger Escape Plan-shaded heat. It’s both a description and a motif that fits well with The Armed for much of Young & Beautiful, sitting as it does just shy of pure discordance  thanks to their sly use of sneaky punky melodies to underpin the whole affair. It’s what makes ‘Pushing Daisies’, the EP’s mid-point, one of the more (and there are many) interesting points on the record. I’d call it the closest to a “traditional-sounding” song that The Armed have ever crafted in terms of structure, but I’m worried that people might mistake that for a backhanded compliment. Closest in tone and timbre to Gallows at their most furious, Chris Elkjar and Aaron Jones’ guitar work provides the track with both a driving pace and some powerfully wild background soloing. Opening with the lyrics “I keep a human skull on my desk / Just to let you know that I don’t fuck around” and only growing in menace until it reaches the threatening chorus refrain of “Someone’s gonna die tonight”, it is barking and spiteful and magnificent from start to finish.

Given that Ron ‘Bumblefoot’ Thal (yes, he of Guns N’ Roses) had a hand in the engineering of the EP, and that Converge’s Kurt Ballou returns once again as mixer, Young & Beautiful sounds as slick and as professional as any million-dollar project, and does so without smoothing off the bitter edges that made The Armed’s earlier releases such a treat. And like Common Enemies before it, Young & Beautiful knows exactly when to make its excuses and leave. The EP batters itself to a close with the aptly-titled ‘You Have Died’, with a frustrated an sneering gang-vocal chant of “USA! USA!”, repeating itself over and over again until the song splutters to an abrupt finish. There’s no need for this song to go on one second longer. There’s no need for any more songs right now. The Armed’s work here is done. -thrashhits

 

 

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The Armed - 2010 Common Enemies

Band : The Armed

Album : Common Enemies

Release Year : 2010

Genre : Mathcore | Chaotic | Experimental

Tracklist :

 01 - Death Panel
02 - Liar
03 - Second Hand
04 - Woodenlung

 

There are absolutely, positively, zero reasons why you should not own a copy of The Armed‘s Common Enemies EP. As with the band’s These Are Lights album from 2009, The Armed are giving away their music for free. Again. Seriously, what does a band do to make you listen to them? They’ve recorded some superb music.

Common Enemies comes out swinging – the only warning you get before it kicks in is the brief intake of breath from vocalist Adam Senko before his first, furious roar erupts from his mouth. While These Are Lights showcased some of the math-y aspects of The Armed, from the off Common Enemies is about being a hardcore punk rock band – in the bleakest, most absolute interpretation of punk rock imaginable – means in 2010. What it means is: they’re aiming to destroy you, and destroy you good at that.

This uncompromising break-neck take on hardcore continues with ‘Liar’, which muscles in with the force and the precision of the Dillinger Escape Plan trying their hand at powerviolence. These DEP comparisons that’ve been thrown The Armed’s way since their inception aren’t because they’re mindlessly aping them though – it’s because they share the New Jersey mob’s ability to effortlessly shift the direction of their sound in a split-second, whilst remaining exciting and without sounding forced. It’s of little surprise that they’ve gone and snagged Chris Pennie, founder member and ex-drummer of DEP, for a guest appearance on ‘Second Hand’. What will surprise you though, is the measure of his guest spot – as this is arguably the least DEP-ish track The Armed have ever done. Instead of a demonstration in fucke-up polyrhythms, instead we get a dreamy, instrumental interlude that almost sounds like indie-pop.

In fact, the only thing keeping this from full marks is its length – a mere four tracks – and even just typing that I feel fucking cheap for docking it a half-point for such a spurious reason. The Armed have made yet another white-hot, furious bundle of insistent, essential fury that feels like it’s on the verge of bursting, such is its intrinsic need to be heard. The Armed have gone above and beyond what 99% of bands would do to make it as easy as possible for you to hear this music – for that alone you owe this EP a listen. If for some reason the fact that it’s better than almost anything else you have or will hear for the rest of year isn’t reason enough already.

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The Armed - 2009 These Are Lights

Band : The Armed

Album : These Are Lights

Release Year : 2009

Genre : Mathcore / Chaotic / Experimental

Tracklist :

 1. Party At Pablo's
2. Kingbreaker
3. Hail Troglodon
4. As Centaurs
5. Buy A Snake
6. I Steal What I Want
7. Grand Party Frankenstein
8. Gave Up
9. Terrordactyl
10. Elephant
11. The Great Fatsby

When the chaotic and emotionally charged atmosphere from a hardcore album is blended together with the musical chops of metal just right, it will most likely result in something great. (Unless there was a major error during the writing process.) This great result being an alive, crushing, and altogether entertaining metalcore album. This combination gets even better when unique elements that aren’t usually found in hardcore or metal are added to the mix, because when this is done, it means no metalcore album that’s concocted will ever be in exactly the same vein. But remember what I said earlier, all of these things need to be blended together just right.

The Armed’s These Are Lights looks like a superb metalcore outing on paper. It has the technical but still tightly wound riffing, inspired and frantic vocals, and a fair amount of those fun unique elements. But rather than evenly blending all these things together, and letting each have their time to shine, the band layers them on top of each other, creating a very dense collection of songs.

Yes, the riffs are fun, and well-written for the most part, but they begin to become hard to distinguish from each other over the course of the album. And while the vocals are frantic, and while you can tell there is real inspiration and emotion behind them, they begin to grow dull as well, simply from a lack of variation. The only song that features clean vocals (which are very well done, and the album should’ve had more of) is “Gave Up,” and they’re still layered beneath a voice effect, reminiscent of a PA system, just like the single-toned yells the rest of the songs consist of. Along with these downfalls, pretty much every song does have its own unique trait that distinguishes itself from the other songs, but these traits are so buried beneath the songs’ other layers, they’re difficult to find, or remember, depending on the listener.

These Are Lights is loaded with fun, well-written riffs that unfortunately get lost in a haze of dissonance, along with the many other layers that stack up the album’s songs. The album contains a fair amount of interesting, unique elements that could’ve been a lot more interesting if they were more prevalent in the mix. And though I can hear real inspiration behind them, the vocals grow monotonous pretty quickly. Although it doesn’t make its way into your head or your heart, These Are Lights is still worth the listen to at the very least, make your ears perk up.

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