Crazy Arm – Dark Hands, Thunderbolts (Xtra 
Mile)
Release Date: 29th
January 2021
It’s at times like these that we need
artists with fire in their bellies and ink in their pens so we should all
rejoice and breathe a sigh of relief to have a new release from Crazy Arm. ‘Dark
Hands, Thunderbolts’ is the hotly anticipated new album from the Plymouth
collective and it really couldn’t have come at a more opportune moment for you
and for me and the entire human race.
‘Montenegro’ gets things going
with a reliable wall of distorted guitars and thumping drums before settling into
a riff heavy verse that is, well, it’s unmistakably Crazy Arm. On ‘Blessed
& Cursed’ the band take a more folks meets Ennio Morricone route as the
thundering drums give you the feel of being dragged along by a rag of colts against
your will. Recent single ‘Brave Starts Here’ mixes rock, country and folk
perfectly with all the energy of a hoedown but the purpose of a car chase
montage as the guitars rattle at breakneck pace through your ears. It is a
blistering start.
A darkness falls over the land on
‘Fear Up’ as that huge drum sound puts the fear of God into you before frontman
Darren Johns does his preacher ‘bit’ with a foot on the monitor instead
standing in a pulpit. The gorgeous folk instrumental of ‘Dearborn’ leads us out
on the wild moors where fiddle strings slither around us like untamed winds
before ‘The Golden Hind’ gets back to rocking out with some chunky riffs and the
opening line of “crawl through the backstreets searching for the rapture” which
sets out a fairly ominous stall.
Jeeeesus, that bass line at the
start of ‘Loose Lips’ is as dirty as they come. I mean, its low, growling and
it means business which lets the rest of the band build the melody around that
mighty pillar of noise. I think ‘Mow the Sward’ is my favourite track on the
album with the tidal wave of guitars giving way to a face off between Johns’
rasping vocal and the drumming which is just relentless – plus it reminds me of
the much-missed Cable which is no bad thing. ‘Trail of Meds’ is an absolute
behemoth of a track that sounds like depression feels at times – relentless,
loud, all-encompassing and heavy – but it ends by going in to ‘Paradiso’,
another instrumental interlude that relieves the pressure as a gentle trumpet
melody wafts by on a warm Spanish breeze.
‘Epicurean Firestorm’ is not just
one of the best song titles I’ve seen in a few years, it is also happens to be
the kind of song that leads you back to sure during a tumultuous storm with the
sheer power of rock and the soaring melody that sings out of the guitar. The
opening bars of ‘Howl of the Heart’ are about as rock’n’roll as you can get as
the band evoke images of waves crashing on craggy cliffs as they rock hard,
King Cnut style, in the face of the oncoming tide. ‘Demonised’ continues the
guitar chug and honestly if your head isn’t at least vigorously nodding by now
then I just don’t think you have the spirit of rock’n’roll in you anymore.
Maybe you never did.
The album closes out on ‘Health
Is In You!’ and we’re going out on a high as Crazy Arm reconfirm their
reputation as one of the UK’s most innovative and open minded rock bands
singing “Man you’ve got to woman up, man you’ve got to toughen down” over folk
melodies played out on rock guitars. This is a triumphant return from Crazy Arm
and a timely one but, more importantly, this feels like an album that they
needed to make as a catharsis for the times we are in and I think we all need
to get in on that.
More information: https://www.facebook.com/thecrazyarm