Album Review: Perfect Saviors by The Armed

The Armed have, until recently, presented themselves as "functionally anonymous," a revolving door lineup boasting members of Converged, Queens of the Stone Age, and Jane's Addiction, alongside multitudinous creative friends and musical acquaintances. This lack of definition (in contrast to their ludicrous physical musculature), the promise of the unknown, the mysterious and the ever-evolving, led to a reputation that conjured as much discussion over their identity as their music. They sent actors to interviews, faked their names and credentials, refused to offer anything tangible--other than the music.

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Disarmed Over the last 5 years, The Armed have made a career out of sculpting roses from barbed wire. Once "just" a Converge-ian screm fledgeling, the semi-anonymous and variously-configured collective have since spent their days shapeshifting into/around many post- metal/hard -core things, all the while retaining their riding-aflame-eagle-into-large-typhoon levels of reckless + charming + stupid energy. The group's endearing preposterousness has only grown with each chameleonic rejig - from the chaotic calculator abuse of Only Love to the gleeful glitterbomb of Ultrapop - each pimping out noise / electronic / pop / grind / math as required for their respective visions.

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The Armed have always had an excess of ideas. Each song from the Detroit group seems to go in a thousand directions at once, traversing a multitude of styles in the process. Often pegged to hardcore through a shared community and ethos, the reality is that they kinda make Armed music - confusing, bewildering, but often brilliant. Profoundly progressive, new album 'Perfect Saviors' is complex, surreal, dynamic, and often funny.

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