THE ARMOIRES
Octoberland
(Big Stir Records)
The Armoires, having played with identity and style before, most conspicuously with their album Incognito – comprised of singles released under pseudonyms – now emerge for their fourth album as a clear unit, the five-piece playing together for the whole album and the two leads, Rex Broome and Christina Bulbenko, sharing lead vocals throughout, harmonising to the extent that it’s not always clear who is singing. The album is atmospheric, layered and always crystal clear, with superb production by Michael Simmons of Sparkle*jets U.K.
The opening track We Absolutely Mean It declares this intent, a thumping, stomping invitation to “Octoberland”: “Ambiguous androgyny, The parents and the progeny”. The song defines the band, a theme song in the vein of The Monkees, and with similar psychedelic debts. Octoberland itself is a shadowy realm, accessed through the thin veil of the autumn. The album contains “witchy” imagery, black cats and broom(e)sticks , the destination being a place governed by artists – dubbed “the artistocracy” in their lyrics – and the Armoires themselves being closets in which one could find anything, wardrobes often being, of course, gateways to magical worlds. The band know that this is a dangerous tack to take, conceding, “This was never about comfort, This was always about risk”. Octoberland is not without its dangers. As the cry of Sfacciata! (brash, cheeky) tells us, at the end of this emphatic introduction, the band have a clear agenda.The following track – This One’s for The Swedes - celebrates collaboration, a tribute song to a Swedish band called In Deed who also record for Big Stir records, which is run by Rex and Christina. It’s a glam rock on the road song, led by a keyboard riff and augmented by Larysa Bulbenko’s viola. Like many of the songs on the album, hinting back at the power pop of the 90s and 00s, a lineage from bands such as The New Pornographers, and further back to The Loud Family.
Ridley and Me After The Apocalypse is superb, gifted with a fantastic keyboard sound, as Rex and his daughter Ridley walk in a future ruined world, built from the very language of media culture she has perfected “Diegetic music or score? Five man band? Slice of life? We haven't worked out the lore”. It’s a complex lyrical conceit which asks a lot of the listener, but well worth the effort. The chorus is as contagious as a world-ending virus, spelling out the end times literally. The rhythm section of Cliff Ulrich (bass) and John Borack (drums) are especially effective here in holding a backbeat behind rather convoluted scansion.
This dark imagery continues in Ouroboros Blues, which takes a almost country twang to lyrics about “Dark portents and harbingers on the wing”, the circular snake representing the self-absorbed nature of modern life, social media and the political circus, there’s mention of the “omen of death” linked to what Americans call “the October surprise” – an unexpected event in October which influences November elections: the potential return of Trump being an unspoken shadow over the album. Rex’s line “if you're so brave as to engage with the sad, diseased carcass of what used to be civil discourse” leaves us in little doubt which way the artistocracy lean politically and what they think of social media. This leads into Green Hellfire at the 7-11, which tells the story of going shopping at the time of the 2017 election, and an explosion happening, making both the parent and child there feel scared in different ways for what might be happening and what might be to come. The explosion turns out to be a transformer accident, but the eventual violence at the next election makes this another portent, an omen, set to a whimsical, bouncy, almost hillbilly chorus.
Here Comes The Song is a key track for the album: ostensibly about the joy of creating music, the melancholy, drifting melody actually outlines music that is just as likely to be played by the Lord of Misrule or danced to under the shadow of the Wicker Man as to be played in an arena. The lyrics quote Yeats: “The Song slouches toward Bethlehem, Because it’s looking for a place to be born”, with the content and intent of the song unknown. “The Song doesn’t give a damn who it hurts, The Song just wants to be played”. Beautifully delivered by the band with a string quartet, the circling melody and structure outline the continuing privilege, and dangers, of being creative, potentially being a channel for something destructive as well as beautiful that spreads by any means possible, and continues the folk horror theme of the album: this was always about risk. The second half of the album has You Oughta Be Cut in Half, with a set of interfering voices offering unsolicited advice for good or ill, an XTC influenced lyric in which the target is advised “Discard the part, That's holding you down, The stems that keep you anchored to the ground”, another massively cheerful sounding song concealing potentially dark realities. Or more positively, that we only move on by leaving something behind. Then Sickening Thud is a protest song, about the environment and especially trees – but more pointedly that disinterest by the population mean trees fall “Like a line of dominoes, No one to bear witness but us, and the ravens and crows”.
Snake Island Thirteen has been reviewed here before, as part of a charity single released by Big Stir for United Help Ukraine with a second song by Roy Crank (Ukrainian musician and DJ). The song tells the story of the Ukrainian soldiers posted on Snake Island, who when threatened by a Russian warship responded by telling the Russian warship to fuck off. The story became memes, t-shirts and postage stamps, and the lyric of this song conflates the idea of modern mythology being spread in this way with the actual mythology of the island, that Achilles is buried there. The stories of heroes spread across time merge together, which fits with an album theme of worlds separated by a thin veil of time, or magic. The song has a driving verse, forceful and measured, with the chorus slowing down to emphasise what those soldiers did and what still needs to be done “Courage over fear, Take my hand and speak out loud and clear”. The way the story is transmitted, “From wireless screams to endless memes, Through electronic media”, echoes the way the song of Here Comes The Song spreads itself, a meme being nothing more than an electronic infection, but this meme, a story of heroism, is definitely of benefit.
It's a Good Time to Come Down From the Cold is a bluesy, musical sounding track, piano led, a show tune! It reflects and repeats lyrical motifs from earlier on, telling us to join them “Headed out for Octoberland, Sing songs and tell tales far away from the madness”. The title, using the word “down” rather than “in” is unusual, but suggests that we should “come down” from our self-absorbed lives, come down from the battle and possibly down from our ivory towers, and it’s no doubt very cold up there on the moral high ground as well. The album ends with the first single released from it – Music and Animals – a celebration of both, with all the band members having pets which are name checked within. The lyric still sounds a note of caution though, not everyone is happy in that witchy world that they inhabit: “They would burn us as witches if they knew, But everyone needs a familiar, To sing their secrets to”. The celebratory nature is the soul of the album, an invitation to ignore the real world: “How do we get by in this life? What'll remind us we can laugh and dance and cry?”
With a barrage of hidden meanings, lyrical and musical quotations and borrowed motifs, it’s the kind of album which will certainly reward repeat listens. Whether everyone will appreciate a power pop / chamber pop concept album influenced by XTC, Todd Rundgren, Robyn Hitchcock, The Loud Family and Big Star with highly intelligent lyrics and a wide vocabulary (the band refer to themselves as dryads at least once) is … a good question. But they should. The songs are hook filled, powerful and memorable, and the concept is at heart simple: a call to us all to collaborate and flourish, and so celebrate the bright and dark beauty of creativity. Or remain isolated and face an apocalypse. You’d think it was a no-brainer. Unfortunately, that’s also a description of so many, many people. I know I’d rather live in Octoberland.
Essential Information
It's Armoires Week in Outsideleft!
More about The Armoires at Big Stir Records, here