A while back we told you that Todd Goldstein’s Arms were readying a new album, Patterns. The album is now upon us (it has been for a while, because we’re behind the curve as always) and proves to be what is perhaps Arms’ most interesting release to date. As the title suggests, Patterns deals with patterns of all kinds, something Goldstein explained in an interview with Gimme Tinnitus: “The title refers to behavioral patterns, patterns in nature, patterns in pop music; the songs are about acknowledging those things, finding the fragile humanity and humor in those idiosyncratic, quasi-universal truths”.
Patterns sees the band (Goldstein plus drummer Tlacael Esparza) explore a big stylistic range, mining depths that Arms have never been to before. Its triumph lies in how all of these elements are brought together. As the blurb describes, it “lassoes every last one of ARMS’ sprawling stylistic and emotional tendencies and channels them into a handsome, wild-eyed suite of guitar pop. Patterns is a love letter to letting go”.
Opener ‘Laughing Academy’ is jaunty indie pop, complete with a feel-good guitar solo and held together by Goldstein’s signature vocals, while lead single ‘Keep It Light’ sounds like the Arms we know and love amped up a few notches, revealing a band that could write bona fide smash hit pop songs if they were willing to part with the wiry indie rock bedrock of their sound. Luckily for us, they haven’t done that just yet, a fact confirmed by the song’s pounding finale.
‘Stellary’ slows things down a touch, swaying smoothly to and fro as Goldstein’s vocals snake around the central kick drum, hitting the high notes during the chorus in an almost R&B style falsetto. This lull in tempo remains on ‘Goodbye to All That’, Goldstein’s vocals again leading things, smouldering amidst the lush instrumentation.
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Things get acoustic on the somewhat paradoxically titled ‘Wall of Sound’, a track that shows that Arms don’t require indie rock bombast to make an effective tune, while the instrumental interlude ‘Red Rover’ sounds like that feeling of watching a sleeping city at night. This dreamy reflection is punctured by ‘All 4s’, where Esparza attacks his drum kit with gusto as the guitars swell and lift around Goldstein’s familiarly off-beat lyricism:
“There’s a restless energy
it lurks behind your eyes
dormant like a gene
it will express itself in time”
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Goldstein gets to fully air his croon on ‘Turnstiles’, with its slow thwacking drum beat and reverb of piano, again suggesting the band could achieve stardom if they were willing to swap out the eclectic stylistic range and odd, intriguing lyrics. Luckily for us they have bigger ambitions than radio air-time, enabling them to pursue strange, striking tracks such as ‘Missing’. “I don’t want to force your hand,” Goldstein sings. “The witches disguised as plans will never do / Like the king of death bed regrets / and the queen of last requests could ever choose”. The song pushes forwards with insistent energy, the constant percussion and Goldstein’s free-flowing delivery conjuring meaning out of the most cryptic of sentences, demanding you make sense of the peculiar verses, before culminating in a finale of sparkling noise.
This grand finish is rounded off by the otherworldly ‘Sticks and Stones’, the track feeling like an epilogue with its tidal synths. These electronics flood over Goldstein’s vocals and the background harmonies, ebbing and flowing and pulsing outwards with an almost astral air, growing more strange as the song shimmers toward a close and proving the value of experimentalism and atypical art.
On Patterns, Arms prove they have it all, they can do big and catchy, smooth and heartfelt, raucous and a little bit weird. If you want an album to make you dance and sit still and think, then you’d be hard pressed to find a better example than Patterns. Grab your copy now from the Paper Garden Records online store or the Arms Bandcamp page.
