The Hard Lessons: Arms Forest

The Hard Lessons’ Arms Forest has the Detroit boy-and-girl duo wandering Hansel & Gretel-like into new territory, strewing only a few crumbs of their constrained past behind them. While they have always churned out likeable Detroit-style garage power-pop, such cheap tricks had begun to wear thin. This release is modulated with broader orchestration and more space for frontwoman Korin’s soulful vocals.

The album is bracketed with dreamy, sample-filled acoustic duets. It opens with the salutation “Welcome to where we come true” in “Manoogian Zoo,” a tribute to Detroit, and closes with the wistful “I Can’t Sleep.” Both tracks are intimate and inventive. The album is most brittle with its straightforward power-pop songs: “Made to Last,” “See You Again,” and “Irish Wristwatch,” which are tired and cliché-riddled, are practically cued for a pitch for the CW’s fall lineup. But the Hard Lessons prove their mettle on tracks outside their previous milieu. Besides the low-key opening and closing tracks, Arms Forest boasts several piano-driven ballads that showcase Korin’s luxuriant and mature voice: “Talk it Over” and “Wedding Ring” are simple, beautiful, and engrossing. The album has some great barn-burners too: “The Arms Forest” is sexy, menacing and mean (and owes a lot to the White Stripes); “Sound the Silent Alarm” is loud and messy, surely  an arena-size anthem live; “Tired Straights” is adrenaline-addled fun; “The Memo” is honky-tonk boogie for twenty-something hipsters.

Not all the experimentation is effective. “Roma Termini” is a calculated electro-punk dance song with a flamenco interlude and …robot vocals (!) – a terribly unfortunate choice with such excellent raw material. “St Christopher,” which invokes the patron saint of travel with piano, sax, trumpet and timpani, is a bit of a reach. Still, Arms Forest shows how a band can grow by leaving the garage and having some fun with production.

http://www.thehardlessons.com/