Haunted Arkade
- Arkade - The Story of Hiding
- Morose and deeply affecting, Seattle's Arkade serenades the macabre in their outstanding 2004 release.
Seattle’s Arkade is a difficult band to peg.
For one, their effusively melancholic and keyboard-rich sound comes across more as mood-enhancing theatrical score than full-fledged rock and roll. Haunting and introspective and rife with dreary symbolism, you’d sooner expect to find Arkade’s songs packaged in a soundtrack to films about murder, revenge and ghosts, rather than compiled together and standing on their own, like on the LP The Story of Hiding.
But that’s exactly what this record is; fifty minutes of eerie, thought-provoking music that gets inside your head like a poltergeist and never seems to let go. Regardless of the non-traditional arrangements and lack of complexity, The Story of Hiding is such an extraordinarily emotional and powerful collection of songs that it defies convention and commands recognition.
When I first listened to this album I was immediately reminded of Hum’s sensationally moving 1995 release You’d Prefer an Astronaut. Sublime and uniquely visionary, Astronaut’s appeal – a multi-faceted onslaught of lyrically stirring images wrapped in a glorious roller coaster ride of sound – is wholly derived from its ability to depress. Pervading themes of fatalism and misanthropy, Hum’s messages of anxiety and fear are flawlessly delivered and accepted by just about anyone who can relate to being desperate.
Which is what I believe Arkade has accomplished with The Story of Hiding, a somber journey into the recesses of a troubled mind that ultimately induces the listener to recount a time of woe and tribulation in their own life.
But where Hum uses intricately woven lyrics set against alternating peaks and valleys of sound to set the mood, Arkade relies more on simplicity and monotonous repetition. Cleverly crafted rhythms – usually shaped by the keyboard – reverberate throughout the album’s best songs while lead singer Kelli Corrado’s evocative lyrics remain even-keeled, disguising a depth of emotion you’re convinced must be there. By remaining minimally obscure and evasive and juxtaposed against a menacing musical backdrop, the lyrics like a galactic black hole suck you in and force you to care, though you’re unsure what about.
On “Ghosts That I Know,” Corrado expresses in the final verse: “So why don’t you just go/Why don’t you just leave/The ghosts that I know,” and, although it’s unclear what she’s talking about precisely, we can intelligently deduce that it probably has something to do with a past relationship that ended painfully. And that’s where the connection is made, in the universal truths of rejection, scorn and yearning. Conjuring up images of my own past romantic failures, this tune had me hearkening back to the most trying times in my life and how I dealt with them. Refreshing on an indefinable level, listening to “Ghosts” is actually uplifting in that it assures you others out there understand what it’s like to suffer similarly.
Though the musical arrangements are modest at best, they rarely hinder the album’s ability to convey raw emotion, and by no means is it more obvious than on The Story of Hiding’s best track, “Wish This Street.” Nearly seven minutes in length, this song starts off slow and calculating with the same mesmerizing keyboard notes played over and over and eventually accompanied, but not overcome by, a full compliment of traditional rock and roll instruments. Culminating in a raucous crescendo of a rapidly increasing tempo and passion, “Wish This Street” is the antithesis of the month of March; it comes in more lamb than lion and exits with the brutal aggressiveness of a famished feline.
More than anything, though, it’s Arkade’s penchant for stimulating goosebumps throughout the majority of this record that sets is apart from the pack. Just about every song is an affecting formulation of superbly crafted art with the uncanny capability to rend the soul of the susceptible. That’s not to say, however, that there aren’t any imperfections, because there are, especially with the songs that bookend this album. The self-titled opening track is 30 seconds of inanity, while the closing number “Silent Movies” is nothing more than six minutes of caustic noise filler.
But in between those two lackluster clumps of iron sufide lie a vein of pristine gold just begging to be mined.
March 9th, 2006 at 9:48 pm
I somewhat disagree with your thoughts on both the first and final tracks on this album. The opening piece focuses on the concept of initial greetings, its execution of mood setting and character introduction flawlessly abrupt and colourful. The final composition..and I’ve spoken to the ideator himself concerning this…is supposed to represent what it would have felt like to be imprisoned underneath the London Bridge, with ships passing above your head, your future in the hands of paid-off officers of the law, all in the dank dullness of a jail. And the piece, while it does demand its listener be patient, repays with an emotional tornado of sounds both gritty and creamy, epic and pedestrian…the album’s final thrust in your heart just to ensure you’re paying attention. (I bet you didn’t know that he employed a plastic recorder connected to both delay and distortion pedals to produce that insane, whispy high-pitched sound!) Other than that, your review was pretty much spot on.
Keep up the grand work!
Regards,
Dryce
March 12th, 2006 at 11:08 am
dryce,
good to know, very interesting facts i did not know.
keep reading, and thanks for the kudos!
vin