A Century's Remains by Arma Secreta

Wildly intricate drums, thunderous guitar, rolling bass lines, and no mercy. Massive, epic, cinematic post-rock. These guys play from the heart. Found them a few months back, listened the shit out of them, wondering why it’s taken me so long to suggest it to others. These guys tear it up. Do yourself a favor, and wrecka-check-check ‘em out. Jordan S. (Decoy)

It is a general rule in most forms of journalism that the usage of the first person is huge no-no. While music reviewing allows a little leeway in regards to the “I” word, it’s still something that writers should use sparingly. Now that the groundwork has been laid, I got to be honest. I’m stuck in the fucking past – 1990 to 1999 to be specific. To this day I am still stubbornly biased towards Midwestern post-punk from that era. Examples: Christie Front Drive, Prozac Memory, Back of Dave, No Knife, Drive Like Jehu, Boy’s Life, Giant’s Chair, Vitreous Humor, and on and on and on. So it’s difficult to swallow how twee-mo bands are spawning like guppies while outfits that harkens back to this era are all but non-existent.

Memphis’ Arma Secreta is a rare exception to this trend. On its debut LP A Century’s Remains, Arma Secreta shows that not only does it tip its cap to the past but also surpasses some of them, too. With blistering hooks and intricate melodies throughout, Arma Secreta’s songs don’t just grab a melody and milk it for three minutes, but contain plenty of infectious shifts and transitions that push this disc past the fifty-minute mark. While A Century’s Remains is chalk full of memorable songs, it’s “Turin Style” that stands heads and shoulders above the rest. Running over six minutes, it has a chorus that will be churning around your head for perpetuity. It may be April, but A Century’s Remains is without a doubt one the best records you’ll pick up this year. – David Lichius (The Daily Copper)

B I O G R A P H Y :

Arma Secreta, Portuguese for “secret weapon”, began in 2003. Their infancy was like most bands: no name, no direction in mind, just a guitarist and a drummer hashing out ideas in their precious spare time, and testing out their new rock relationship in whatever space they could find, which in this case happened to be the back of an office furniture factory in Memphis, Tennessee. And with every session came more ideas and more excitement about what they were creating, piecing together, and ultimately ushering into the world.

Feeling that sense of urgency that comes with too many ideas, not enough time, and future regret; the two agreed the music needed to be made, a band had to be formed. They converted the back of their space into what is now Missile Silo Studios, and got to work.

Nine months after the formation of this band, it’s very existence was threatened when Christopher (ex-Staynless) was diagnosed with cancer in December 2003. After surgery and months of recovery, Christopher, Bradley, and former bass player / mixing engineer Alex Zhort made a pact that they would not play live again until their record was finished. And that is exactly what Arma Secreta did. “When a doctor tells you that you’re dying, your priorities change pretty quickly. We all decided that touring was a distraction for us, so we holed up for nine months and focused on writing, recording and producing this record ourselves. It was an amazing process; with no pressure, deadlines, or label interference, we had the luxury of making this record exactly what we wanted, and there aren’t many bands that can say that.” recalls Wark.

Recorded in various sessions over the course of 2004/2005, and notably the last rock record

(8 of 11 songs) tracked at Memphis’s legendary Easley-McCain Studios before it burned to the ground; A Century’s Remains is a painstakingly produced and meticulously arranged indie rock monolith. While ripe with hooks, this music is not pop, the songs on A Century’s Remains are smartly constructed rock puzzles; unpredictable, exciting, chaotic, and beautiful.

The meaning of the album’s title is two-fold, as Wark explains, ”the album art is part of an aerial photo essay by the same name documenting the leftovers of a century of industry and progress; and as for the music, many of these songs evolved from fragments I’ve had in inventory literally since before the turn of the century.”

Since the addition of new bass player, Michael Brandon, in October 2005, Arma Secreta has focused on delivering action packed rock to show goers everywhere.

Appropriately dubbed by fans as “three men doing the work of six,” with Bradley’s blurry machine-like drumming, Christopher’s confounding guitar loop layering, and Michael’s bass gymnastics; their live show is a sight to behold, taking audiences from whisper quiet anticipation to blistering waves of noise and frenzied power.

Arma Secreta is just coming off their Spring tour March-May 2006, and is now booking their Summer/Fall tour.

Web Address: www.armasecreta.us

Myspace: www.myspace.com/armasecreta

Purevolume: www.purevolume.com/armasecreta

Booking: Gary Crump -- gary@snaxmemphis.com

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