ARMS
Kids Aflame
(Gigantic, 2009)

When he’s not crafting riffs for the Brooklyn-based pop-rockers the Harlem Shakes, guitarist Todd Goldstein becomes ARMS, a project he’s been chipping away at between Shakes tours since 2004. ARMS is a nice break from the Harlem Shakes for fans, and a refreshingly sweet (though still edgy) listen for any fan of neurotic, folk-influenced indie-pop.

In Kids Aflame, Goldstein’s debut full-length as ARMS, his moody baritone mixes with his sparkly electric guitar and melancholy ukulele under a heavy layer of reverb. It’s an authentically lo-fi album, recorded here, there, and everywhere on portable recording equipment—sometimes nothing more than a microphone and a laptop in a dressing room, sometimes as much as a bedroom setup. The format definitely suits Goldstein, as his songwriting and vocal quirks enjoy the spotlight here—fancy production would eliminate the charm and shift the focus away from those things. As it is, without bells and whistles, Kids Aflame speaks with a distinctive voice.

The album is at times angular in a late ’90s/early 2000s New York sort of way that Goldstein, as a long-time New York musician, has a right to be. This is the case on “Whirring”, the first full song on the album, and “Tiger Tamer.” Both tracks have a steely shred to them that offsets the droning vocals. Goldstein’s inner New Yorker also shines through in the lyrics of “Shitty Little Disco”, a song about feeling uncomfortable at a hip Downtown party that skids across splashy disco drums that sound great in lo-fi.

A folksier vibe enters on tracks like “Sad, Sad, Sad” and “Kids Aflame.” In the former, Goldstein gives his voice a workout, breaking the vocal monotony with trembling tenor melodies and ethereal harmonies. The latter finds Goldstein toying with Jonathan Richman-esque balladry, strumming a ukulele, snapping and peppering the moany chorus with “bah bah”s.

Kids Aflame is a self-conscious album filled with cleverly spun titles, like the opening track title “Sabretooth Typist” and “Kids Aflame” (a deadly serious song, literally about teenagers setting each other on fire). But the over-awareness keeps it from being as candid as it could be. “Eyeball”, with lyrics like “Oh, isn’t it strange that people have eyes,” is a little too twee-folksy, and it distracts from the momentum the album built up to that point. That being said, it isn’t a bad song, it would just be better suited for another album.

It is good to see Goldstein out on his own instead of playing second fiddle to his Harlem Shakes colleagues. He is a talented songwriter and performer in his own right, and we can only hope that his sophomore album will come to us sooner than the five years Kids Aflame took to gestate. And, since at home in Brooklyn Goldstein has assembled a crack band and has been playing live to rave reviews, it appears ARMS is digging in to stick around.

Listen: Various Tracks [at myspace.com]

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