Pre-order of Trust. You get 3 tracks now (streaming via the free Bandcamp app and also available as a high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more), plus the complete album the moment it’s released.
Purchasable with gift card
releases June 25, 2021
$7USD or more
Record/Vinyl + Digital Album
Plastic poly bag outer sleeve. Black disc with b-side etching and album art on insert.
Includes digital pre-order of Trust.
You get 3 tracks now
(streaming via the free Bandcamp app
and also available as a high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more), plus the
complete album the moment it’s released.
shipping out on or around June 25, 2021
Purchasable with gift card
$25USDor more
Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album
Armlock's 'Trust' on Limited Edition CD. Clear case with picture disc.
Includes digital pre-order of Trust.
You get 3 tracks now
(streaming via the free Bandcamp app
and also available as a high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more), plus the
complete album the moment it’s released.
Just when we were out of the gate
Honest to god I want to stay
Linking up the rings on a chain
Honest to god I want to stay
Found a way be a part
Of a story that you told
Be a murder in path
Adding to the dead load
Found a way to ignore you
In a way that makes sense
And the way you read aloud it
Kind of sounded like a threat
Just when all the hate went away
Honest to god I want to stay
Keeping up the front to keep face
Honest to god I want to stay
In a way I give a fuck
In a way that tips the scale
In a way you flipped a coin
In a way you got the tails
Found a way to ignore you
In a way that makes sense
In the way you read aloud it
Kind of sounded like a threat
(Just when we were out)
What I kept here
What you came for
More like Autumn
More like April
(What you came for
More like Autumn
More like April)
Two ghost empty the vase
Took place behind the shed
Let go with one embrace
Sometimes gotta break the bread
Not bad for a nameless start
We were teething for the bite
Another mortal blow
Never spoke that's how I fight
I loved when my fingers froze
I loved when we got the perks
I loved when we missed the flight
We were vengeful through the night
Turf war
Knives drawn
We’ve just existed for so long
Farewell again
There’s a choir in my place
I can stand in their gaze
Just for our parents sake
Lets try and play it down
I feel the same mistakes
In my heart my skull and my crown
You thought we’d get this far
Perhaps that’s why you fled
I made you promises
Carved them in infrared
I loved all the skin we shed
I loved when you acted cool
I loved when you lost your phone
When you found it you blew me off
Turf war
Knives drawn
We’ve just existed for so long
Farewell again
There’s a choir in my place
I can stand in their gaze
Claim on the miles
Personal truth
Balance the ledger
Standing on your shoulder
Pat on the back
Iron the crease
Truth is a virtue
Blood in the water
Burn off the thought
PAYG
Loose to the pulling
Power of a waterfall
You’re a man
That’s what you said
Put food on the table and put sheets on the bed
Pull yourself up
Get something to prove
Your foot on the shovel and your hands on the book
Auto-reply
Fan on the blink
Wind in the foreground
Panicked in the corner store
Sore on the tooth
Bruised to the core
Sweet to the ears
Someones in the bathroom
Biting my tongue
Biting your cheek
Ads on the TV
Lambs to the slaughter
Personal truth
Personal truth
Personal truth
Power of a waterfall
You’re a man
That’s what you said
Put food on the table and put sheets on the bed
Pull yourself up
Get something to prove
Your foot on the shovel and your hands on the book
(Pull yourself up)
Power of a waterfall
Power of a waterfall
6.
Tabs
7.
Hanging Like a Pendant
about
“In some respects, Trust is a simultaneous documentation of progression and regression. A homecoming of sorts, influenced by the interim where we developed our skills as producers and our skills as artists. Armlock, as a vehicle, seems like returning full circle to where we started.”
Trust began as voice memos passed back and forth between the two, with early demos being recorded when the pair lived together in Yarraville, Melbourne in 2019. It took a minute for them to find their songwriting stride after so much time spent composing electronic music, but the record came together while recording in Lam’s home studio in 2020. The band handled every aspect of Trust themselves, including production, recording, mixing, and mastering.
The sense of second-guessing and insecurity is at the heart of the record, musically and lyrically. Opening track “April” begins with Lam singing the lyrics, “Just when we were out of the gate/Honest to god I wanted to stay” over layered acoustic guitars. As the song builds, digital textures blink in and out of the background, Mitchell’s acoustic guitar working like a metronome until the drums finally come in. It’s a stunning moment, the band’s entire ethos presented in a song.
“Tabs” is a melancholic song about being in a relationship with someone who is doing a little bit better in life than you are. The song doesn’t pull any punches, with Lam lamenting, “I’ve got the losing touch/Wish that I kept tabs on all of the things that I wanted to have by now.” “Tabs” tackles themes of fear and shame, as Lam constantly wonders when his partner will finally see that he’s not enough. It’s a strained and distorted love song with a tenderness to the lilting melody, as a banjo and Juice Webster’s backing vocals rise at the song’s end.
“Turf War” is an ode to moving on without closure. A lowkey guitar plays as Lam sings, “Never spoke that’s how I fight,” nailing the way the things left unsaid often hit the hardest. There’s an essence of mixed feelings to the track, combining bitterness at the loss of the relationship with a thankfulness that it happened in the first place: “I loved when my fingers froze/I loved when we got the perks/I loved when we missed the flight/We were vengeful through the night.” The song ends with wordless harmonies over a soft but insistent drumbeat, accepting that things will continue on, for better or worse, with or without reconciliation.
The centerpiece of the record is “The Power of a Waterfall”. The song begins with acoustic guitar over a slow, trudging beat, with Lam’s vocals at their most disaffected. The chorus is among the band’s best, with Lam singing, “You’re a man/That’s what you said/Put food on the table and put sheets on the bed.” The song chronicles disappointment in the uninspiring expectations of masculinity and adulthood. The band describes it as being about “the general narrative of your adulthood that’s drilled in from a young age, and the relentless boredom that comes from fulfilling that prophecy… how mundane things cascade you into a kind of madness.” The result is a song that sounds disgusted and resigned all at once, as if there is no point in fighting against it any longer. Lam sings at the midpoint of the song, “Personal truth/Personal truth/The power of a waterfall.”
credits
releases June 25, 2021
Armlock is Hamish Mitchell & Simon Lam
Additional Credits:
All songs written by Simon Lam & Hamish Mitchell
“Two Shots” is written by by Simon Lam, Hamish Mitchell & Jack Britten (artist name Jack Grace)
“April”, “Turf War”, “Jade” and “Tabs” feature vocals by Julia Webster (artist name Juice Webster)
Within seconds of discovering this record I knew I was hearing my new favorite band. This record has been on blizzard repeat since. Long live The Stroppies! Rob I. Miller
