Posts Tagged ‘Arcade Fortress’

Arcade Fortress – Younique

Posted: 21 October 2022 in Albums
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26th September 2022

Christopher Nosnibor

Ever spend time scratching your head wondering what a song or band remind you of, and drawing eternal blanks? Yeah, I get it a lot: I put it down to exposure. Too much music to process.

This is by no means my first introduction to Arcade Fortress: we’ve featured three of their previous singles here on these pages, and I personally described ‘Sabotage’ as ‘a fully-realised anthemic beast of a tune’. And I stand by that, too.

Younique the album finds them powering into the title track by way of an opener, there are samples seeping from the corners as they thrust away at a punk / rock / pop hybrid sound with incendiary energy.

Younique may not be unique by any stretch, but then nor is it derivative, and my ponderance for comparisons is a frustrating distraction but simply a habit of mine. I can’t help but try to place references, lifts, nods. It’s perhaps because there’s so much going on and Younique is such a melting pot of all things from 90s grunge to post-millennial punk-pop that placing any of it specifically is nigh on impossible, and as a result, what you’re faced with is the vibe, and it’s deep retro.

They encourage us, the listener, to sit back, relax and enjoy a rollercoaster of a ride over 12 anthemic rock tracks, but it’s not as easy as all that. The slow-burning Sabotage’ sits four tracks in and there’s no questioning its anthemic enormity, and I can’t help but think of a grungier take on the sound of Depeche Mode circa Ultra, perhaps, when they were grittier and more guitar-driven.

But there’s a lot happening here. It’s not all absolutely killer: ‘Alan Bell’ gets a bit emo and lightweight, and elsewhere, and ‘Killing Time’ sits between Weezer and 80s hair rock, while ‘Tangible’ throws an area-friendly curveball. In contrast, the driving ‘Uppercut’ is more reminiscent of Therapy? circa Troublegum and its tense, taut, and totally kicks arse, as does the riff-driven ‘Strontium Dog’. ‘Dark Seeds’ is more of a punky / hard rock crossover.

It’s not always easy to make a casting vote, and it’s not always fair to get off the fence when it comes to weighing up maters of opinion and taste. Ultimately, Younique finds Arcade Fortress packing some solid tunes, and that’s hard to argue, regardless of taste.

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Arcade Fortress – Uppercut (Pembroke Boxing Club Tribute)

Posted: 6 April 2021 in Singles and EPs
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2nd April 2021

Christopher Nosnibor

Hot on the heels of February’s ‘Sabotage’, rock duo Arcade Fortress return with ‘Uppercut (Pembroke Boxing Club Tribute)’. Celebrating the club, which is run by Christopher McEwan, who’s the chairman of Great Britain Disability Boxing, and as such, it’s a celebration of triumph in the face of adversity, of the power of perseverance and the strength of the human spirit. Uplifting and lively in its lyrics, ‘Uppercut’ showcases a much more hard-edged sound than its predecessor, it’s also a full-on TUNE that comes blasting out with real attack from the very first bar. It’s less Survivor and more Therapy? The guitar buzzes hard and is driven by a relentless percussion that pummels away, and hard, with an adrenalizing effect that really grabs you. For all its edge, though, ‘Uppercut’ still boasts a solid hook (sorry, unintentional).

Clocking in at under three-and-a-half minutes, ‘Uppercut’ packs a punch (and I’m happy to own that pun) and raises the expectations for the forthcoming album.

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Artwork

Arcade Fortress – Sabotage

Posted: 12 February 2021 in Singles and EPs
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19th February 2021

Christopher Nosnibor

After a few months out, Richard Fox (lead guitar, bass guitar, keys, producer) and Gavin Connolly (vocals, rhythm guitar, piano), aka Arcade Fortress return with the first taster for a new album in the form of ‘Sabotage’ – their first new material since the album Create More than You Destroy last September.

The first point of note is that this most definitely isn’t a cover of the Beastie Boys’ hit. This is a good thing, because you shouldn’t mess with perfection, and should always instead strive to create your own.

‘Sabotage’ is all about self-sabotage and self-doubt: the first verse is littered with images of war and combat, from naval battles to machine gun fire, before bringing things in closer to home, presenting an inner turmoil that melds domestic abuse with a n altogether more Fight Club themed feel, where all the torment and self-loathing coalesces into a harsh-inward facing nihilism and self-loathing:

‘In an abusive relationship with myself / It’s surprisingly hard to remove / This knife from my back / Stuck in my spine because of / My own frenzied attack’, sings Gavin over a sonic backdrop that builds nicely from a sparse picked guitar jangle to a fully-realised anthemic beast of a tune.

There’s nothing particularly fancy about it: it’s not innovative or unusual, but it’s a big tune with a big feel. There is simply no substitute for a killer chorus and a strong hook, and that’s precisely what Arcade Fortress bring here.

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Sabotage artwork

Arcade Fortress – Create More Than You Destroy

Posted: 21 September 2020 in Albums
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11th September 2020

Music – and people and individuals – can be positive or negative forces. Often, in the arts, destruction isn’t only a necessary but truly essential part of the creative process, and this can also mean on a long-term cyclical basis also. But ultimately, the title of Arcade Fortress’ debut album makes for a solid recommendation: there has to be some equilibrium, and in destroying more than you create, the result is a negative, an artistic minus, a kind of void or black hole.

There are times I’ve been sceptical about this, though. I mean, creating is ultimately about legacy in some shape or form: what if your output is vast but dismal? What if your legacy is like Status Quo without ‘Matchstick Men’? What if your legacy is Oasis? What if your legacy is the Vengaboys?

Clearly, some people just don’t care, and just want to leave a mark, even if it’s just a skidmark. If the tile of their album is to taken as any kind of statement or manifesto, Arcade Fortress is a band with an eye on their legacy, and they set their stall out without shame, namely to draw together aspects of Biffy Clyro, Foo Fighters and Frightened Rabbit, to produce ‘a collection of eleven festival-ready rock songs’.

And so it’s all about objectives, about ambition. I don’t think these guys have any aspirations or illusions about becoming the next voice of a generation or anything so lofty or pretentious, and once you come around to understanding that, Create More Than You Destroy makes the most sense.

Up first, ‘Oxygen Thief’ is urgent, punchy, and has a poky, up-front production. The chorus is a punk-popper primed to curry favour with Kerrang Radio with a chanty ‘oi-oi-oi-oi!’ hook bridging from a catchy chorus. It’s a surefire moshpit fave in the making, if and when moshpits return – which surely they must, at least one day. We have to cling to some hopes. And hope and aspiration is strongly infused within the songs on here.

‘Crowded’ is a bit Foos-play-pub rock, and for some reason, my ears just hear Meatloaf fronting Biffy Clyro on ‘Erosion’. Elsewhere, ‘In It’ is more Reef / Red Hot Chilli Peppers than appeals to my ear. But then, the driving ‘Nothing to Say’ blends the quiet / loud dynamic of grunge and the raw four-chord stomp of punk to produce a song that’s simple but effective and hits the spot, and with a more melodic slant on gunge than either of the two most obvious touchstones, Nirvana and Dinosaur Jr, ‘Albi’ is a slow-burner that is well-executed.

It’s not hard to hear the appeal of Arcade Fortress here. It’s been a long time in the coming, and Create More Than You Destroy is not an album to be judged on whether it’s revolutionary, but on whether it’s an artistic success based on ambition and purpose: and since their ambition is to produce songs that, quite simply, rock, and in taking on an array of styles, Arcade Fortress show they’re adaptable and have an ear for the accessible: success surely awaits.

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Arcade Fortress Artwork