On their fifth studio album Perfect Saviors, the Detriot-based music collective The Armed comes in with force but slowly becomes repetitive and indecipherable. With an endless battle between vocals and instrumentals, the record doesn’t quite perform well.
The album starts on a high note at the beginning of “Sport Of Measure,” with a perfect combination of higher and lower vocals, a small xylophone rhythm and a few brass instruments. The lower vocals continue until a giant wall of sound enters the mix, almost decimating the beautiful vocals. This eclectic mix of soft and loud continues throughout the track, mixing in a few guitar solos before the song ends.
The wall of sound is the biggest fault with this record. Every song seems to be an endless battle between the vocalists and instrumentalists with the instruments dominating every single time. The vocals seem unnecessary with no balance, although the lyrics and sounds are incredible with vocalists like Boygenius’s Julien Baker on board.
“Clone” and “Perfect Vanity” are two songs that illustrate this point perfectly. On “Clone,” the rock introduction is incredible, the guitar riffs are energetic and the drums accent perfectly. But then the vocals come in and the balance feels totally off; the lyrics can partially be heard, but are absolutely taken over 80% of the song.
“Perfect Vanity” feels like a more electronic and distorted take of Arctic Monkeys’s Tranquility Base Hotel and Casino with smooth and sultry electric guitars, and more tame drums moving the song along. Still, once again, the screaming and varying vocal progressions feel completely out of place.
The album’s highlight has to be “Burned Mind,” a track that shows balance is possible and highlights the best parts of the collective overall. An intro that is mainly distorted vocals accompanied by a stamping beat shows vocal prowess and emotion even before the drums kick in. The instrumental is solid, with a good mix of banging percussion, funky bass and perfectly placed guitar riffs running through it all.
Overall, Perfect Saviors has a lot of instrumental and vocal material, but the record doesn’t completely come together without a good balance between the two.
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