Crazy Arm are back with ‘The Southern Wild’ an album that’s something of a departure from their previous sound. The album is an 11 track acoustic trip to a Clint Eastwood spaghetti western. It’s an experiment and one that works.
From the opening bars of ‘Oh Death/Hell To Pay’ it’s quite clear you’re in for something different. The lyrics are absolutely belted out with confidence and attitude. It forces you to sit up and listen before a moody southern riff comes in with the rest of the song playing out like some background music to The Walking Dead. The things that you like about Crazy Arm are still here in abundance, the harmonies found on the likes of ‘Remembrance’ and ‘Fossils’ are excellent and the guitar intricacies are still there with ‘The Wild Cats of Denbury’ and ‘Roasting River’ the former providing a great example of how to do an effective interlude.
Going into the albums home run ‘We Don’t Go There Anymore’ grabs your attention straight away with an energetic fiddle led opening and ‘The Valley of Weeping’ is a vocal interlude that showcases the vocals of Darren Johns brilliantly. The album ends on the brilliant ‘Black Canyon’ a song which builds fanstically before fading out on a piano led outro.
I’m not sure what the future for Crazy Arm holds, there’s no doubt that ‘The Southern Wild’ will divide the opinion of some fans and who knows whether this is the style we’ll see from Crazy Arm in the future, all I know is that what they’ve done here has worked. It’s so different and unlike anything we’ve ever really been offered in the British punk scene in a while and I’m looking forward to what Crazy Arm have in store for us.
CHRIS MARSHMAN