Philadelphia’s Arches deliver quiet, contemplative contemporary indie folk psychedelia in their latest LP, Wide Awake. The title may be "wide awake", but the album is a bit of a sleeper, and it’s hard to peg a standout single. Tracks "This Isn’t a Good Night For Walking" and "Headlights" have been making the rounds in the blogosphere since the album was released, but the real strength of Wide Awake is the net, accumulated impact of the rich, melancholy world that gradually comes into focus over the course of many listens. In other words, both a slow burner and a grower, which is a perfectly sensible mode of engagement with the Arches’ style of sound: leisurely-paced, majestic, subtly curious compositions that forgo the flash & thunder, don’t embarrassingly beg for attention, but reward whatever attention is granted.
Above all, the Wide Awake listeners should prepare themselves for the generous pacing of the material. The typical Arches song unfolds slowly and almost imperceptibly, like a sunflower stretching towards the sun. Think of the tempo of Beck’s Mutations, or think of Low (QRO album review) – slow music, ripe with tension and intrigue. There’s an art to slow music that most rock bands don’t have the patience for (not so with electronic music – perhaps it’s simply easier to hold sustained notes on a synth than physically produce the sound on a live instrument… imagine how boring and tedious it must be to sustain those long violin notes on droney Velvet Underground songs; you’d have to be stoned to cope). Not enough pay-off – the first thing a young band does when it wants attention is make BIG LOUD FAST NOISES. Big loud fast noises piss the parents off, makes the crowd look up from their beers, gives the musician the sensation of wielding enormous weapons of sonic devastation. What teenager hasn’t fantasized about the Michael J. Fox moment at the beginning of Back To The Future, when he hooks his electric fascist killer into an amp roughly the size of a Hummer and blows the doors off of his high school with one giant tidal wave of a rock chord?
This is America. Bigger & faster is always better, or so they say. If, on the other hand, you have the taste for quieter moments, give Wide Awake a go. Good things come in slow packages. Let this album simmer a bit like a broth reduction. Let it age like good wine. Let it ripen on the vine before harvest. Some albums need time, and Arches are worth the wait.
MP3 Stream: "Spinning Around"
