Arkells

One Liner: Old Arkells = good alt rock; New Arkells = generic indie dance rock

Wikipedia Genre: Alternative rock.
Home:  Hamilton, Ontario.

Poster Position: 25
Day: __
Weekend Two Only.

Thoughts: This is one of those bands that sounds very much like someone else, but I can't quite put my finger on it.  The Wallflowers?  No.  Paul Westerberg?  No.  Cracker?  Nah.  Pete Yorn?  Maybe?  Soul Asylum?  Not quite.  The Revivalists?  Could be.  The Fray?  Not quite.  None of those are quite right, I'm thinking of some mid-90's soft alternative band like Ben Howard or Semisonic going for a soul sound?  Dammit, there is something brewing in the back of my brain that is going to fire out in a few days and I'll be like "YES YES, IT'S BARENAKED LADIES!!!"  (except that's not it either)

Their "Related Artists" list on Spotify is a list of made up band names a computer created while being infected by the WannaCry virus: Said the Whale, Hollerado, Ubiquitous Synergy Seeker, Hey Rosetta!, and Wintersleep.  For real, those are band names who are apparently like this band.  WTF.  My wife and I had a fun discussion in the airport a few weeks ago where she was making fun of some band's name, and I told her about the band The World Is a Beautiful Place & I Am No Longer Afraid to Die.  She didn't believe me, and then tried to come up with band names on the fly, and EVERY ONE OF THEM WAS TAKEN.  Panties - taken.  Black Panties - taken.  On and on, everything she came up with had a band on the Internet who had used that name.  Which is why we are now stuck with names like freaking Ubiquitous Synergy Seeker.

The band is a pack of Canadians, and their sound is a piano forward indie rock.  Their most listened to track comes from 2014's High Noon.  Here is "Leather Jacket," with 6.2 million streams.

I mean, that is not their best song.  Many of the other tunes in their catalog are much less cheesy than that one.  I mean, the chorus?  "You called me up from a pay phone
I said "Hang tight, I can drive you home", I pulled on up and with a southern accent, I offered you my dad's leather jacket."  Huh?  According to Genius, he came up with the southern accent line because he liked Friday Night Lights, the TV show.  WTF.  And I agree with the sentiment near the end of the song - "who the fuck uses a payphone?"

Let's go to their most recent album instead, 2017's Morning Report, which boasts their second-most listened-to track, "My Heart's Always Yours," which has 5.1 million streams.

Oh, wait, crap.  Is that one pretty cheesy too?  Dangit.  I swear, when I listened through their whole catalog on Spotify I thought this stuff sounded pretty good.  Now it sounds like the bad section of the Killers new album.  Overly self-important and grandiose.  From poking around on the Internet, it looks like there is a vocal section of fans who love their first album, and then have felt let down by the tunes since then.  So let's give them one more shot, with their most popular track from 2008's Jackson Square.  "Oh, The Boss is Coming!" has 837k streams.

Yeah, OK, this is more like a Foo Fighters-lite thing, more alternative rock and less piano indie.  I like it too.  "Pullin' Punches" is good.  "Deadlines" has a good rock swagger to it.  This album is definitely their best stuff.  And it somehow includes a song called "Ballad of Hugo Chavez," which is so very odd and while ostensibly about the ex-Venezuelan president, but mainly just repeats the line "night of the sun! hey hey hey!"  Whiiiich, I guess I missed the part of world history class where Chavez was known for yelling "hey!" at the sun during the night?  That track is not great.  But "Champagne Socialist" is pretty solid and the rock breakdown in "I'm Not the Sun," a keyboard-sustained rock ballad, is also prime.

We'll go one more, their new track, a 2018 single called "People's Champ," which is more funky, but kind of a generic dance rock track.

OK.  Well I guess I'm on board with the old school fans of the band who long for the old alternative rock sound, instead of the new piano and synth-heavy sound.  Being that they are all Canadian, I'm sure even the angry fans are exceedingly polite about their disappointment in the new music.  "Oh gee, eh, I surely did enjoy that first album, you guys.  Great job trying to make more good music, eh?  Sure love that first album though!"

Probably won't go see this.  Wait!  It's the New Radicals!  That is what I hear - the "You Get What You Give" guys!  YES!!!  No, wait, it's the bad part of the Killer's new album, but if Dave Grohl sang the lyrics while he had pneumonia!  Dammit!  I can't get it right!