by Matt Keim
It'll scratch your itch for punk beats and power-pop choruses from top to bottom, but when Personality Cult push outside genre boundaries on their second album, New Arrows, the results turn electric. Packed with driving beats, there's not a slow moment until the finale, and with nary a song longer than two minutes and thirty seconds, the record sprints along without a pause for breath. Amidst the rush, Ben Carr's vocals clear out space for melody after melody, often calling back and forth with stabs of guitar.
When the vocals and guitar get a little, weird, or when the band brings in a viola (looking at you, “Sharp Edges”), is when the tracks get truly hot. The opening track, “Nothing To Do With It,” has a snare build underneath a bassline that would be at home in Twin Peaks before exploding into a monster power-pop verse and chorus. The above mentioned “Sharp Edges” uses a staccato string line to counter the emotional yearning of Carr's vocals before turning into the most triumphant song of the bunch. “Telephone” rises up with the catchiest of choruses, before being topped by the next track where Carr turns himself into a seagull at the end of the chorus.
”Pressure Point,” though, is the true highlight. Near-haunting guitar arpeggios, sudden and spastic rhythm changes, broken vocals, and the most cathartic release midway through that is sure to get an audience dancing. All in a minute and forty-three seconds. Brilliant.