At the moment
Australia is undergoing a live music renaissance – it
started with the Vines, and then came Jet, and
now there’s been bands galore opening up – Wolfmother
exploded onto the scene, Expatriate are the next
cabs off the ranks. Right, who’s next?
Forming form the ashes of Snap!
Crakk!, there’s
a plethora of groovy cats with killer hairdos lining
up to stake their claim. Melbourne synth-rockers
Damn Arms are one such group, who have emerged in
the wake of the Killers and the Bravery to stake
a claim with their impossibly shear haircuts.
They’re punkier than their Las Vegas or New York
City brethren – jagged guitar lines more in keeping
with the likes of Maximo Park or Bloc Party dominate Patterns,
while urgent rhythms swirl and drop like atom bombs
out of the sky.
It’s a mix that we’ve heard before, but Damn Arms
control it impressively: there’s rarely a wasted
moment on Patterns, but also rarely a slice
of differentiation to really set them apart. They
sound like a promising act though, and like they’d
be refreshing and invigorating in the live context.