Album Review: Crazy Arm – Dark Hands, Thunderbolts

Releasing their last album ‘Southern Wild’ back in 2013 and almost calling it a day soon after, Crazy Arm thankfully trundled on and are now set to release this fourth edition of what quite frankly is some of the most outstanding music to hail from these shores in a long time.  At least 4 years in the making ‘Dark Hands, Thunderbolts’ brings everything that Crazy Arm are right back to the top of the pile, it shakes the creaking bones of us now older generation of fans and then shows the youth what crashing the party is all about.

Let’s get this firestorm underway!

‘Montenegro’ has the pleasure of kicking off this album, not the best song on the album, but that is a very very high bar to be reached, on its own this one song could smash any a live audience to a pulp with its power and epic mosh pit energy and leave them drenched in sweat, but hold on to the seat of your pants, because this is a ride your gonna want to never get off.

‘Blessed & Cursed’ comes in next, to wipe the floor with the blood sweat and tears of the last song, this System Of A Down meets Gogol Bordello epic, smashes all the life out of every corner of its 3 minutes 55 seconds, with pure theatrical prowess, relentless thumping drum beats, guitars that paint pictures in the mind and a vocal that both “blesses and curses” you with its boundless sublime thespian delivery.

If any album you ever listen to can grab you by the balls, shake your head like its not connected to your body, make you smile, make you cry, make you think and above all entertain, then its done its job, this album does all this and more! 

Never resting on any one moment in the history of music, this album takes whatever it needs from wherever it wants and makes it more.  A couple of interludes drop in perfectly with movie score timing, ‘Dearborn’ and ‘Paradiso’ give the listener a time time reflect on what’s gone before and what the hell is coming next! With songs like ‘Golden Hind’ giving brexiteers a mauling, ‘Loose Lips’ tackling the heart rendering refugee crisis and ‘Trail Of Meds’ laying the truth bare, all this in a soundscape that twist and turns from punk hardcore to melodic what can only be described as blue grass/rock, all your emotions need that interlude.    

Saving the best to last is something that may have been premeditated or maybe not, really doesn’t matter ‘Health Is In You’ finishes you off as far as all the nervous energy goes, but what it does leave you with is a sense of what you really should be concerned with, rights of those who deserve them, this song is a pro feminism ode, but it could easily be a pro everything else that needs to be supported, favourites lyric of the albums sits within this masterpiece of musical brilliance, “man you’ve got to woman up, man you’ve got to toughen down, man you’ve got to get a grip”

What a beginning to 2021!  As far as this year goes so far, 2020 has already been thrown to the lions as far as releases go, this hits the top spot so far and it’ll be hard to topple it….   5.5 out of 5 for me. 

Released on January 29th, you can pre-order Black Vinyl, White Vinyl, CD or download HERE

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