Arms, “Shitty Little Disco”
The New Amsterdams, “Hover Near Fame”
Like the rest of their fans and friends, I’ve been waiting what seems like forever for a full-length album from my college chums the Harlem Shakes, and there are still a few months to go (Technicolor Health is due out in March on Gigantic Music, home of the Walkmen). In the intervening time, however, I was happy to stumble upon Arms, the solo project of guitarist Todd Goldstein. Arms’s debut Kids Aflame strays from the danceability and expansive sound of the Shakes—the production is rougher, more suited for headphones than club speakers, and the arrangements are simpler, at points stripped down to bare-sounding acoustic guitar or ukulele, finger snaps, and trembling vocals. But Goldstein’s skill as a songwriter is clear, and he makes up for the lack of hooks with lyrics that evoke the sadder side of the rock and roll scene. The protagonist of “Shitty Little Disco” is notable not because he’s interesting or distinctive, but because he isn’t—he could be any of us on a bad night, going to the same terrible party with the same cynical crowd we’ve dealt with a million times, and itching for a fight just for the sake of something new. “Hover Near Fame,” my favorite New Amsterdams song, describes the same character before the fall—tunneling his way further and further into the New York nightlife milieu, not yet aware that it’s empty inside.
