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The Armed is a band that's been floating around in my life for a while now. I think I may have first heard their EP Young & Beautiful as early as 2011, or it might have been their split with Tharsis They, a thrashy hardcore band whose album Ominous Silence got positive attention in the metal blogs I frequent. Whenever it was, I've always been charmed--if "charmed" is the right word for such a vicious-sounding band--by The Armed's yearly EP releases.
I always thought of The Armed as grind, although the band self-identifies as punk, pure and simple. Put on "Witness," the opening track of The Armed's second full-length, Only Love, and I think you'll see why I find the band to be at least somewhat grind-minded. The furious electronics, pyrotechnic percussion, and raw, screamed vocals certainly fit in with a more chaotic genre tag. But on this, their second album, the band has expanded their sound a bit from previous efforts. The solid blasts of punk/grind fury now see some cleaner vocals creeping in. Exceptions abound, though. "Fortune Daughter" features some understated melodic vocal lines, but they're contrasted with vicious female vocals from a member who may have been added to duel with the pre-existing male vocalist. (Or she might have been in the band all along. As far as I can tell, The Armed has never been forthcoming with who the members actually are.)
But if you're afraid my description of Only Love sounds like a band starting to go soft, fear not. "Apperception" is a full-bore assault. A casual listener might think the percussionist and his entire drum kit fell down the stairs during the recording while miraculously keeping the beat, but repeat listens reveal fills on top of more fills. There's almost a cathartic build to the song that veers into "sunny" territory, while somehow still being full of fury, which is a juxtaposition the band also executes flawlessly elsewhere, like in "Middle Homes."
Genre debates between punk and metal aside (Encyclopaedia Metallum does not include them, for whatever that's worth), I have a hard time imagining anyone with a passing interest in grind OR punk wouldn't dig what this band is doing, and unlike other bands of a similar spastic ilk, Only Love showcases a band that's evolving and growing. I heartily recommend checking out their entire back catalog, but their newest is a good place to start.
