Burbank, CA indie rock quintet THE ARMOIRES proudly bring you their next single “Here Comes The Song”, out July 12 on all digital platforms. The third track to preview the band's much-anticipated fourth album due this fall, the single will be teased by an official video during release week, and it's up for pre-order and presave now:
A profound change of pace from the prior preview singles (the sweetly twee “Music & Animals” and the urgent mission statement “We Absolutely Mean It”), “Here Comes The Song” is a sweeping slice of compact and dramatic indie pop storytelling uniquely suited to The Armoires and their singular approach to the form. Vocalists CHRISTINA BULBENKO (keyboards) and REX BROOME (guitars) deliver the emotional, surreal parable in their trademark close harmonies, jointly leaping up an octave at the height of the tension. Drummer JOHN BORACK and bassist CLIFFORD ULRICH build the track to a climax and back down to heartrending coda as the singers tell the dreamlike tale of the titular “Song,” a mercurial character with an agenda all its own. The tune's narrative arc is amplified by an insistent string quartet arrangement performed by the band's violist LARYSA BULBENKO, doing triple duty on first and second violin, joined by guest cellist Jared Jenkins.
“It's a Faustian story where the devil doesn't show up,” Broome says of the lyrics. “Like many other songwriters, we often feel like we don't so much create the songs as connect with them, plucking them from some realm where they already exist, waiting to be sung. And we all know of songs that are iconic hits, but their meanings are widely misunderstood. The spark for this story was: what if a songwriter connects with a song that has a completely different agenda than the writer's intent – possibly even a sinister purpose, but definitely an ineffable one? What happens when that song gets free in the world, beyond the writer's control, reaching people in ways they couldn't have imagined and might not want? What kind of effect might that have on a creative soul? ”
“It's a big idea for pop song that's barely three and a half minutes long, so we pulled out all the stops to make it as cinematic as we could,” says Christina. “Rex and I sing it as a kind of empathetic Greek chorus like we often do, and the band gives it a great, dynamic reading. But it's the strings that give it that dramatic rise and fall we were looking for.” The quartet arrangement, suggested by Larysa and co-written by her, Broome, and producer Michael Simmons (sparkle*jets u.k.), takes its cue from Christina's lullaby-like introductory piano figure and blossoms to near-epic proportions over the course of the track, peaking as the singers describe the title character: “The Song is dangerous, The Song is cruel, but it's too beautiful to be contained.”
“Here Comes The Song” is just one example of the world-building approach taken by The Armoires in their new material, and the interlocking themes and imagery that fuel the forthcoming album. The “flabbergasting omen of death” here is one of many ominous portents that crop up on the road to the destination the band has dubbed “Octoberland”. “This is as dark as it gets... almost!” says Broome. Christina adds, “You've already heard how it ends, on 'Music & Animals'... with the hope and comfort that come from creativity and companionship. And there's beauty in even the scary parts of the journey. That's what we hope we've captured on this song... we're really proud of it, and the part it plays in the greater whole.” The full new album from THE ARMOIRES arrives, fittingly, this October, with much more to be revealed in the coming months from Big Stir Records.