When Harlem Shakes called it quits earlier this year, it was less than six months after they had released their debut LP, Technicolor Health. Disappointing to see such a nice-guy band halt like that, but Kids Aflame, the first album from Harlem Shakes guitarist Todd Goldstein, shows that he, at least, has a lot left in him.
Goldstein's solo project ARMS actually predates Harlem Shakes. But this album, which was released in Europe in early 2009 (the U.S. version comes with a couple of bonus tracks), feels as if it were recorded in bedrooms and on borrowed time. And it sounds nothing like Harlem Shakes. There's a lo-fi gauze wrapped around everything, though there are some nice nuances built into the layers. Take "Whirring" (the first song proper, following a half-minute of scene-setting texture), which bursts into a jangly, feverish tune with a hook reminiscent of Dinosaur Jr. This sense of familiarity occurs often throughout Kids Aflame, for better and worse. Some of it's due to the mostly unvarying instrumentation, though the sleepy title track is built on a ukulele, while "Pocket" gets a second boost of frantic energy from its closing horn melody.
Kids Aflame feels like a solo album in another respect: Goldstein captures, in his croony baritone, that mixture of loneliness and anxiety that can come even when you're surrounded by people. Both "Sad, Sad, Sad" and "Shitty Little Disco" seem to be about that uncomfortable moment at a bad party when you either leave early or stay far, far, too long, drinking in a corner. Other songs are wrapped in metaphor-- Goldstein seems especially captivated by body parts that come in twos. Luckily we have plenty-- ARMS, legs that break, and eyeballs where he would "...crack those orbs at the seams/ And suck out the juice/ I'd use those eyelashes as brooms to clean up my house." In that song, "Eyeball", Goldstein delivers this quirky-creepy line in the same tone he uses on every other song.
You can hear a little Bright Eyes in the way Goldstein chooses to begin his songs softly, building towards a fuzzy, messy climax. And while I'm no fan of Bright Eyes' melodrama, Goldstein's voice could use a little shaking up. Even in the first-person stories Goldstein feels like an observer, albeit one with a negative bias. Still, ARMS makes for an interesting contrast to Harlem Shakes' eternal optimism.
