Armlock
Seashell Angel Lucky Charm
RUN FOR COVER
In every artistic medium, the creator wielding the paint brush, pen, or clay—or, increasingly, keyboard—must decide whether to go big or to go small. To fill the empty canvas stream-of-consciousness style, or to carefully apply measured strokes in the minimalist tradition: that is the question. Melbourne’s Armlock—who are not, in fact, a pro-wrestling tag team, but rather an unassuming pair of particularly talented musical artists—mostly opt for the less-is-more approach. However, since they don’t confine themselves to minimalism, and know when to decorate their songs with flourishes of beautiful sound, Armlock achieve deeply affecting results on this, their second record.
Seashell Angel Lucky Charm appears to tell the story of a person who falls in love with someone they believe they’re destined to be with, but lack the self-confidence to deserve. The lyrics on Seashell—written, produced, and even mixed by Simon Lam and Hamish Mitchell—are so masterfully penned that they could stand alone as a collection of poetry that would be well-received in its own right. The chorus to the first song alone, “Ice Cold,” is enough to send chills up one’s spine: “Ice cold, ankle deep / Head tilt, turn a cheek / I won’t be around for the rest of the week / Takes one to know one / We were born in the air sign / I’m gonna come back with the sword you left behind.”
Armlock’s lyrics are so heartfelt, it often feels like an invasion of privacy to read them. They’re even more penetrating thanks to the musical accompaniments that Lam and Mitchell carefully apply to create an even fuller work of art. Slow, spare acoustic guitar notes on “Ice Cold” are accompanied by just a whisper of light percussion and, eventually, Lam’s singing, which he intones in equally hushed breaths. The song eventually blossoms to incorporate more layers: piano, atmospheric effects, Mitchell’s backing vocals, and keyboards. The growth of the song seems to mirror the forlorn narrator gradually opening up to the possibility that hope still exists.
Ensuing songs like “El Oh Vee Ee,” “Godsend,” and especially the album-closing “Fair” follow the lead of opener “Ice Cold,” so to speak. However, the entire record—which is a mere 19 minutes long—isn’t defined only by those tracks. “Fear” is a fluffy foray into a dreamscape framed by Mitchell’s soft singing. Meanwhile, the album’s cornerstone song, “Guardian,” is an upbeat, warm, and smile-inducing composition that reflects the sentiments embodied in its aspirational lyrics: “Looking for a meaning, looking for more / I hear soft singing down the corridor / Faith in the present and in the past / And faith in the future that I’m yet to case.”
It’s abundantly clear over the course of Seashell Angel Lucky Charm that Armlock aren’t trying to out-quiet (or out-bummer) Low, Philip Glass, Cat Power, or any minimalist-minded musicians we oxymoronically refer to as “slowcore.” Maybe that’s because Lam and Mitchell plan to perform these songs in rock clubs, not libraries. Or maybe it’s because, in not abiding by minimalism as if it were a religion, they stay true to what is far more important: the music that emanates from their souls.
