In 2021, Armlock released their debut album Trust, which glimmers with the cozy, idiosyncratic indie magic of Alex G. Today, the Australian duo is announcing its follow-up, Seashell Angel Lucky Charm, which is their first for Run For Cover. The lead single “Ice Cold” is out now.

Simon Lam and Hamish Mitchell met studying jazz at Melbourne’s Monash University. The pair recorded and mixed the album themselves. “There’s no real distinction between writing, demoing, and final production, it’s all done at the same time,” Lam explained. “It’s a workflow that is much more common in electronic music and how we started making music together.”

He added about the process, “We very much have a ‘throw stuff at the wall and see what sticks’ approach. We focus a lot on how an element sounds, rather than what an element is — if there’s a guitar part that’s not quite working, rather than try a different guitar effect or amp sound, we’re more likely to replace it with a keyboard, or a sample. A ‘sound’ is just as important as a ‘part’ to us, and I think that’s how a lot of electronic producers think.”

Some of the songs on Seashell Angel Lucky Charm grapple with his Catholic upbringing and his subsequent abandonment of religion entirely. I’m not sure what “Ice Cold” is about, but it’s a mesmeric blip of eerie alt-rock. Hear it below.

TRACKLIST:
01 “Ice Cold”
02 “Fear”
03 “Guardian”
04 “El Oh Vee Ee”
05 “Seashell Angel Lucky Charm”
06 “Godsend”
07 “Fair”

Seashell Angel Lucky Charm is out 7/12 on Run For Cover.