ARMS LIKE ROSES DROP “BLOOMING”
Just over a year after releasing their first EP, Connecticut-based emo band Arms Like Roses has dropped their first full-length project, “Blooming.” Read on for our thoughts on the album and some words from the band.
Arms Like Roses’ first EP, “Get Some Sleep,” suffered from tracking and mixing issues that left the band less than satisfied with its release. “We started it before the pandemic, and then we had to wait a year and a half to finish recording. By that time, the stems got lost in translation, we had to switch not just engineers, we had to switch full-on studios,” says guitarist Xela Stockmal.
Percussionist Thomas Shreve puts it plainly: “Some of the songs on the EP, I think, are good, but we invested a lot more money into the LP because it just made more sense. It’s just like any other band: your first release is gonna be trying to throw things and see what sticks.”
Despite being held back by technical difficulties, their first project did show a lot of promise. The band swiftly followed with the acoustic-focused “Past Midnight” EP, adding Adam Padilla as another guitar. According to him, the rest of the band was eager for him to collaborate. “I was like, oh, they don’t just want another guitar to round things out a little bit. That was a very new experience for me. But I’m really glad that I got to do it,” says Padilla.
It was an interesting step in a different direction for the group as they found their footing. Now, just shy of a year later, “Blooming” shows signs of them really starting to hit their stride.
From the start, “Blooming” is a significant technical improvement from the band’s previous releases. Both the tracking and mix are much smoother, more coherent, and more deliberate. The opener of the album “...And We’ll Always Be Friends (Forever, Right?)” showcases this with a lo-fi recording followed by some momentous, chugging guitars that drive the album forward into the amazingly rhythmic “The Separation Between Fact and Feeling.”
The instrumentation of this next song makes it clear that the members of “Arms Like Roses” have spent plenty of time developing their chemistry and finding their groove. Second-wave emo, math rock, indie, and elements of hardcore and metal are incorporated to various degrees throughout the record without any one influence becoming overwhelmingly dominant.
“The Separation Between Fact and Feeling” is also where the record really begins to showcase the songwriting. We get lyrics about how the horribly depressing state of the world can make it hard to get motivated, counterbalanced by a call to action against the oppression and injustice so many people are forced to face.
Many of the following tracks dive into self-doubt and criticism. Lyrics like “please rip my insides out and feed them to my enemies” on “I Made You a Mixtape (Because I Hate Your Fucking Guts)” effectively portray the struggle of internalizing the judgment of others, toxic environments, losing people, and becoming distrustful of your own emotions in the process. However, there’s also a throughline of holding onto love and cherishing the moments you make with the people you love that keeps the tone from being pulled down into despair.
These different emotions all weave in and out as a winding, continuous narrative. Notably, many of the songs on “Blooming” avoid repetition. Whenever something is said or done more than once, it demands attention. An example of this is at the end of “Portrait of a Happy Family,” where vocalist Estelle Angel sounds fractured and overwhelmed as she calls out to her parents. The explosive, bass-driven instrumental finale of that song is also a major highlight of the album.
The second-to-last track, “Conversations at 3 AM on a Friday Night” bring the tone to a positive note after the cathartic self-deprecation and emotional questioning of previous songs, with lyrics reminiscing on late nights talking with friends. It starts a trend of moving forward and acceptance that continues with the closer, “Flowers For Our Fathers.”
On the final song of the album, Angel makes vivid allusions to her father, who tragically passed away in 2021. The slowly building instrumental and backing group vocals create a lot of weight for the song, making it feel like a truly climactic sendoff for the album. And ending the whole thing with a voicemail from Angel’s father elevates it to a profoundly powerful moment of bittersweet acceptance.
Following the release of “Blooming,” Arms Like Roses is not slowing down by any means. “I’m looking forward to writing our next album, I’m looking forward to doing more tours together. I think I’m ready to put everything I have into this band, and I hope that can be visible in the next stuff that we do” says bassist, Nina Marie.
Lead vocalist, Estelle Angel adds “The possibilities are endless. To me, fame and fortune doesn’t really matter. I’d rather be happy doing what I love and expressing my emotions.”
Time will tell where they go, but this album is a solid step in the right direction.
Favorite track: “Flowers For Our Fathers.”