I’ve seen Arms twice on stage, one night, wandering West of Houston, back in 2009, I wandered into Mercury Lounge and was systematically blown away by Arms and I picked up the album Kids Aflame, and was very impressed again. But then, somehow or the other, I lost track of the band, really Todd Goldstein (a good guy) and various accomplices, even 2011’s full length Summer Skills didn’t fully wake me up.
But last year I caught the band at Studio At Webster Hall as part of the CMJ fest and again I was blown away by the performance and by the songs they were playing off the excellent EP2. You can read my take here but here is an excerpt “The 20 minute set is a complete triumph, it doesn’t build, it spins.”
Some eleven months later and Arms have released a covers EP, Backwards Record, on Spotify only and I like it a lot though I am a little baffled by these lo-fi slowed down almost operatic versions of songs which, for the most part, weren’t that popular in the first place.
First among equals is the Ronnie Lane and Ron Wood masterpiece for the Faces, “Ooh La La”. Poor ol’ Ronnie Lane, Plonk to his buddies, the very soul of the Faces and a great songwriter who died from multiple sclerosis back in 1997, has never gotten his due. Was never Rod Stewart. “Ooh La La” is the rueful story of Ronnie funning at his Grandpa’s warnings about women’s ways until Ronnie is caught himself. Todd plays it for tragedy, a melodic dirge, all of these songs are melodic dirges, but you are on firmer ground rearranging Elliott Smith and Guided By Voices and both those songs are quite acceptable, GBV’s “Goldheart Mountaintop Queen Directory” sounds like a spiritual, Rufus Wainwright’s “Foolish Love” an overwrought country ballad and Elliott Smith “Ballad Of Big Nothing” a lo-fi bedsit land folk rock.
This is small music but big sentiments and it does the job but in whose cause I am not certain. By most standards, this is pretty good stuff, by Todd’s standards it is probably his least interesting work to date and still pretty good.
Grade: B+
