The Armed are back up in this motherfucker. In 2023, the conceptual Detroit rock collective released the album Perfect Saviors, and they followed it last year with their Everlasting Gaze EP. Thus far this year, the band has opened for Bernie Sanders and Converge, a pretty sick pair of elders, in Detroit. They covered the Stooges while opening for Sanders, and they debuted some new tracks while opening for Converge. Now, the band is ready to announce a new album, and this one has the title The Future Is Here And Everything Needs To Be Destroyed. That title is a mouthful, and it's not exactly the message that Bernie Sanders was bringing on his Fighting Oligarchy tour. But maybe it's not that far off, either.
According to a press release, the new album is not conceptual in the way that previous Armed records are. Instead, they're going for just primal raw expression here. Lead singer Tony Wolski says, "It’s music for a statistically wealthy population that somehow can’t afford food or medicine -- endlessly scrolling past vacation photos, gym selfies, and images of child amputees in the same feed. It reflects the dissociation required just to exist in that reality." That press release says that the album includes performances from the following people:
Ken Szymanski, Patrick Shiroishi, Urian Hackney, Kurt Ballou, Troy Van Leeuwen, Meghan O’Neil, Cara Drolshagen, Tony Wolski, Brian Wolski, Justin Meldal-Johnsen, Ben Chisholm, Prostitute, Zach Weeks, Mark Guiliana, Kayleigh Goldsworthy, and Derek Coburn.
That list of names includes Converge's guitarist, Queens Of The Stone Age's guitarist, Chelsea Wolfe's main collaborator, M83's go-to producer, Punch's singer, a prominent jazz saxophonist and composer, and a punk-adjacent singer-songwriter, among others. It does not include Deafheaven frontman George Clarke, but he's in the band's promo photo, so you figure it out.
The opening track "Well Made Play," which the band debuted at the above-mentioned Converge show, is a raw two-minute noise-blast that seems to take equal influence from metallic hardcore and free jazz. The Armed always have great videos, and this one will stick with me for a minute. Director Christopher Gruse stages the clip as a brutal fistfight between brolic dudes in business casual clothes, beating one another up for access to a jetski that neither will ever reach. Tony Wolski says, "While we chase distractions and small comforts, we’re pushed into endless competition with each other -- often while those with real power take freely, right in front of us." The visual metaphor was probably obvious enough that he didn't need to say that. Both the song and the video are visceral experiences.
The Armed's live show is also a famously visceral experience. Later this year, they'll play shows around the US with album contributors and recent Band To Watch Prostitute -- good news, especially after the Armed were forced to cancel a tour last year. Below, check out the "Well Made Plan" video, the tracklist for The Future Is Here And Everything Needs To Be Destroyed, and the band's tour dates.
TRACKLIST:
01 "Well Made Play"
02 "Purity Drag"
03 "Kingbreaker"
04 "Grace Obscure"
05 "Broken Mirror" (Feat. Prostitute)
06 "Sharp Teeth"
07 "I Steal What I Want"
08 "Local Millionaire"
09 "Gave Up"
10 "Heathen"
11 "A More Perfect Design"
TOUR DATES:
8/14 - Cambridge, MA @ The Sinclair *
8/15 - New York, NY @ Le Poisson Rouge *
8/16 - Washington, DC @ The Atlantis *
9/16 - Seattle, WA @ SUBSTATION *
9/17 - Portland, OR @ Mississippi Studios *
9/19 - San Francisco, CA @ Rickshaw Stop *
9/20 - Los Angeles, CA @ The Roxy Theatre *
12/12 - Chicago, IL @ Thalia Hall *
12/13 - Detroit, MI @ El Club *
The Future Is Here And Everything Needs To Be Destroyed is out 8/1 on Sargent House.
