Crazy Arm are the perfect band post-2020

Why Crazy Arm deserve your ears and your hearts on the release of their first new album in seven years, ‘Dark Hands, Thunderbolts’

- 29 / 01 / 2021 -

‘Dark Hands, Thunderbolts’, Crazy Arm’s fourth studio album and their first in seven years, is out now. Buy the album on black or white vinyl, CD and download.

When all you want is to tell everybody it’s going to be alright, there’s a band for that. When you’re sure the world is falling apart and you don’t know quite what to do, Crazy Arm will be there for you. They’ve always been there in spirit, as if they were an entity risen from the Devonshire soil containing the blood, sweat, tears, and heart of musical folk history brought into existence by the reckoning the mid-2000s had in store for us all.

There’s always a band that defies any label you want to stick on it. Crazy Arm are one of those, having spent the last 16 years roaring polemic while tangled up in musical nuance. Their last album ‘The Southern Wild’, from seven years ago - which might as well be five decades ago now - was an acoustic assemblage peeling off blues, country, and a capella folk. This didn’t just come out of nowhere, at least not if you had ever been listening. “I was obsessed with The Pogues from the age of 16,” says Darren Johns, guitarist, vocalist and songwriter of Crazy Arm. “That's where my love of roots music began. From there, it was a short leap to more traditional Irish folk like Planxty, The Chieftains and Christy Moore, and then onto English folk like Steeleye Span, Martin Carthy and Fairport Convention, and the wonderful Dick Gaughan, from Scotland. My first band, Good Grief, in 1985 was a clattering marriage of hammered dulcimer, penny whistle, overdriven guitars and anarchist ranting. Not much has changed really apart from world-weariness and less cringe-worthy songs. Americana and the American folk tradition have had more of an influence on me over the past 20 years. It's a bottomless well of inspiration that I shamelessly steal from. I discover something new, or old, every day.”

Rising from Devon in 2005, Crazy Arm probably had a normal rock band existence at the beginning, except that they had already refused to sound like what was around them. ‘Born To Ruin’ (buy here), a play on Springsteen’s title for his classic third album, followed the release of early single ‘Broken by the Wheel’ a furious country-twang somehow both echoing southern banjos and UK underground guitar twisting trio Shield Your Eyes. The first Xtra Mile single to introduce the album was ‘Henry Fabian Flynn’ which continued with those cascading guitar notes, this time plastered to a pounding Irish pub chant. And so it goes that their debut album in 2009 charged like a bull at the music scene leaving in its trail churned up ground and roots, leaving nothing you could prise apart from the furrow they’d ploughed. The fiery ‘Still To Keep’ rings through heads that have heard it years later, a rallying call for everyone standing up to the aftermath of global economic crisis and terrorist reprisal and endless wars in faraway places.

During this time they soundtracked the sweaty walled venues that heaved with people night after night, and they bellowed from a sense of injustice and personal struggle. But it was in the hammer-on riffs, acoustic strums and rallying chants that they would continue to live in and on. “I think it's important to say something but it doesn't have to be a political message,” says Darren. “A lot of our songs are ambiguous and don't deal with external themes at all. But if the personal is political - which it is - then everything we write has some political connection. It's all about how you frame certain ideas. For instance, I sing a lot about depression and my neuroses but I try to do it in a way that still has a social, or socialist, resolve. If Sartre can do it, so can I!” Would the drive to create be lost without this starting flame? “Motivation wouldn't be lost but it's impossible for me to separate my world view from my emotional responses. They're one and the same.”

A second album came a mere two years later, and ‘Union City Breath’ (buy here) drew on seven years of touring and playing to form a confident, searing, rock album. The Springsteen-esque ‘Tribes’ shows a sophistication in delivering blistering indictments of societal norms. Rearing from The Boss to a capella roars, to call-and-response emo-pop, and finally to a gospel-like crescendo outro, it’s a storming statement on ridding yourself of expectations. ‘The Endless Carriage’ harks back to their debut, but seems even more determined to heave Americana onto Crazy Arm’s already laden, layered runaway train. “It wasn't a conscious effort but once we realised that it was nobody's business what kind, or how many kinds of music we play, there was no stopping us. We started off playing a similar kind of post-punk to my last band, The Once Over Twice, but that all changed when I brought my solo songs into the practice room. It's been a sprawling mess of Americanarchopunkrock'n'roll ever since,” says Darren. It’s true.

‘Song of Choice’, though, is the moment when ‘Union City Breath’ clicks like bones into place. This cover of Peggy Seeger’s original is an explicit challenge to sleeping on encroaching fascism, it sounds angrier when stripped back to acoustic guitar and dual voices - like they’re sapping flames of injustice from the land itself - though a punctuating burst of distorted guitar doesn’t hurt to ram the point home later in the song. For a song released in 2011, it sure seems to have fit the last four years perfectly (even if the majority of young people wouldn’t know who the hell Nick Griffin is, and a beautiful thing that is too).

Crazy Arm are a collective of impassioned souls making music with messages, with pleas and with warnings and advice, personal protest songs that amalgamate the sonic palette of the UK and US, among others. In absorbing the sounds, they also wreath themselves in the heart and the feelings our nations somehow share.

As if in deference to their heartfelt core, their third album ‘The Southern Wild’ (2013 - buy here) simply removed anything noisy and stuck to voices, acoustic guitar strings and percussion. Crafted to capture the acoustic live shows the band play on occasion, it’s as if they revert to some beforetime, a place where ordinary people are huddling around campfires singing about their coming failure in battle, while toasting the glory of putting up a fight. ‘Remembrance’ brings this to the fore. ‘Roasting River’ though could easily lead a march for people protesting fascism and attempts at toppling democracy in their own backyard, with a sweet bluegrass break. Though there’s some sombre moments throughout, this full-on embrace of Appalachian, southern blues and country sounds more hopeful, like on ‘We Don’t Go There Anymore’ - perhaps pointing at a fundamental difference between the origins of the band and the influence ringing throughout this album. It makes for a driving, compelling, heartening listen. “‘The Southern Wild’ was only supposed to be a document of the acoustic shows we sometimes play. It wasn't a change in direction. The problem was we didn't release anything heavier after that until now, seven years later, so some people expect us to be playing acoustic shows when we just want to rock out. We're a punk rock band! We love noise! Thankfully, this new album sets the record straight.” Once again, Darren is right.

Crazy Arm’s latest album ‘Dark Hands, Thunderbolts’ (out 29 January 2021 - (buy here on black or white vinyl, CD and download) which absolutely harks back to ‘Union City Breath’ and ‘Born To Ruin’, still sounds fresh ten years after their last rock album and several years since the songs were written. How? Because Crazy Arm write about issues that cycle round, and struggles that are perennial, especially in light of four years of difficulty for many of us. “This album has had a ridiculous gestation period. Four years passed between demoing the songs to completing the album,” explains Darren. “But we only spend 21 days actually in the studio! In 2019 we spent one day on the album. So these songs fermented like a fine wine, maturing with us along the way. If we'd released it in 2017 it would have been a different beast. Thankfully, the passing of time hasn't dated the songs. That's probably because, lyrically, I don't usually tie the songs down to a certain period. I'd like to think our older songs are still relevant because of the folk-roots dynamic and the progressive ideas.”

Musically, the album meets some expectations but there’s also plenty to be excited about, including a particularly excellent horn break in ‘Fear Up’. “The most recent development has been our love of soundtrack music, particularly Ennio Morricone, which has been in the background on earlier records,” says Darren. “Thanks to our good friend Simon Dobson and his amazing trumpet playing, we can now act out our spaghetti western fantasies. Essentially, Crazy Arm is more of a loose collective these days than a band. There are 16 of us involved, including five drummers, three bassists, two violinists and two harmony singers. Every tour is a new line-up and a new experience. I love the changes in dynamics and it keeps us on our toes.”

At the time of writing, the UK and much of the rest of the world is still in various states of lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic that started in 2020. Live shows feel like something we won’t see much of for a while still, and the majority of 2020 had no shows at all.

“I don't really like to think about it because I just can't imagine not touring this album at some point,” says Darren, as we ask if he could move on from the album even if they couldn’t tour it. “Like most bands, we're never happier than when playing live. The face-to-face connection, the catharsis, the noise, the sweat, the visceral power, it's everything. I'll be pretty upset if we don't get to play some shows before the end of the year. We have a date booked in London in October 2021 so we're hoping to build a tour around that. And we're down to play acoustic at 2000trees fest but I don't hold out much hope for that one. If we had no choice but to move on, I'm still really pleased and relieved to get this record out there after so long.”

Why do we want, nay, need bands like Crazy Arm? Because their conviction and passion reel throughout their sound, strung from their lyrics to their energy, laced in every performance and recording, even in a gang 16 people strong. And there’s safety and comfort in that, as well as kinship. We’re all in a place where we could do with trusted insight and understanding. ‘Dark Hands, Thunderbolts’ thrives on the spectrum of ideas, strung together with the familiar, vital folk roots that have sustained their sound from day one. The aforementioned Ennio Morricone influence seethes through ‘Fear Up’, and fits seamlessly with what we know and love about them. ‘Brave Starts Here’ could’ve opened the record - a greeting to all those of us battered, bruised journey-people who require a hand on the shoulder and a beverage to accompany the storytelling blitz we’re about to embark on.

Darren has some final words around this excellent new, and possibly final, chapter of Crazy Arm’s 16-year journey, reflecting on the highlights that got them here. “I'm hoping 'Dark Hands, Thunderbolts' will be the epitome of what we set out to achieve. But there are a lot of milestones that I look back on very fondly. Our first 7” single on Seven Records; our first album on Xtra Mile; playing Reading, Groezrock and Mighty Sounds festivals; playing 2000 Trees festival nine times in eleven years; touring Europe and building up lasting relationships with bands and fans; touring with Against Me!, Frank Turner and Larry & His Flask; having Chuck Ragan sing 'International Front' with us on tour; and we won Best Rock Act in the South West Music Awards in 2011. That's recognition, right there. We never had any real ambitions when we started the band, it was all about being in the moment. And that became 15 years of memorable moments. At 52, I should probably be past the point of musical ambitions but for some reason I'm hanging in there, still chasing rainbows!”