Arcane Roots - If Nothing Breaks, Nothing Moves

One day, we’re all going to be dead. Now, I don’t mean to jump-scare you with your own mortality to ruin your Friday; the incessant spinning cogs of the corporate machine do that well enough. But there’s a stark inevitability to it. Like the tax man, or that anyone who has ever died on Eastenders will come back to commit more murders/adultery. When that thought pops into your brain, it can be hard to enjoy the smaller things. The Eastenders thought specifically. The crime rate per square foot of that place would make Columbo turn in his badge and go home, to finally put a pin in the mystery of why his wife’s spinoff television show was so awful.

Consider this, then, a resting place, a chance to avoid the unavoidable for a few. And what better way to do so than with some music, to soothe the savage beast of simply existing. Arcane Roots enter the room, an excellent group who, like the Eastenders characters of yore, died in 2018 only to be resurrected last year, much to my delight at the very least. The English post-hardcore are hardly a relaxing pit stop, granted. But when did we ever say this was somewhere calm and serene? Our idea of unwinding here is paying Ticketmaster two hundred pounds a go to get elbowed in the face in a circle pit.

While the band has come on leaps and bounds in production and evolving style in the… Christ, this song came out eleven years ago? That’s not good. Well, in the mildly concerning amount of intervening time and with one reformation under their belts, they always had this spark in them. It’s energetic, emotional, rough around the edges, and a perfect part-time amnesiac for the weights and strains of the week. Our suggestion is getting this round your lugholes at your earliest possible convenience. In fact, make time somewhere for it. We insist. That report you have to finish before the weekend feels pretty insignificant compared to the heat death of the universe, right? Good ol’ inevitability; scaring people into doing our bidding never felt so easy. Or good!