get him eat him - arms down

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.:: Classic rock guitars and Hammond organ intermingle with harmonized vocoder, booming bass and drums, and a jubilant horn section in a unique, powerful and emotionally resonant call to arms. So begins Arms Down, the second full-length album from Providence, RI's Get Him Eat Him. Get Him Eat Him's 2005 debut album Geography Cones was about the precarious maintenance of a social mask-- drinking coffee, going to parties, picking out clothes for a first date. Arms Down is an exploration of what happens when that mask is dropped.

The cultivated jitters of Geography Cones have given way to uncontrolled spasms - the careening thrusts of "Push and Pull," the swaggering stomp of "Present Tenses," the crushing self-doubt and soaring self-realization of "Murphy Bed." A rich, consistent and multi-layered record, Arms Down hits with stunning range and force. It's no accident that Arms Down is so confident and well-honed; Get Him Eat Him has been working on this album since before the release of Geography Cones.

For nearly two years, the band has been writing and recording songs for limited edition tour EPs, tracing out the contours of their new material with thrift store four tracks, second-hand microphones, and cheap software effects. Meanwhile, three national tours (including dates with The Constantines, Xiu Xiu, Oxford Collapse, Ted Leo, Broken Social Scene and The Arcade Fire) brought the band closer together as musicians, giving them ample opportunity to grow into a forceful and cohesive unit.

By the time they began recording Arms Down in July of 2006, the band knew how they wanted these songs to sound. To help them realize this complex and far-reaching vision, Get Him Eat Him enlisted former Dismemberment Plan guitarist Jason Caddell to co-produce the record. Caddell guided the recording process through multiple locations and engineers, including a stint at Brooklyn's Studio G with Joel Hamilton (Sparklehorse, Tom Waits, Elvis Costello), a few days at the Wrens' New Jersey home, and a handful of sessions at DC's famed Inner Ear Studio engineered by Caddell himself.

Arms Down was mixed at DC's Silver Sonya by Chad Clark (Fugazi, Smart Went Crazy) and TJ Lipple (Aloha, Wilderness), and by frontman Matt LeMay on his home computer. The resulting album is a striking combination of homespun detail and hi-fi punch. Musically, Arms Down is no less sophisticated. Seeking to match each musical idea to its ideal sound, Get Him Eat Him expanded their sonic palate with horns from Beirut's Zach Condon and Jon Natchez, strings from Beirut's Kristin Ferebee and veteran cellist Amy Domingues, 12-string guitar from the Wrens' Charles Bissell, and Hammond organ from New York-based jazz keyboardist (and occasional Broken Social Scene collaborator) Chris Brown.

The band's own playing has grown more nuanced and focused, pushing the expressive range of each instrument to fit their increasingly intricate and dynamic material. Like its predecessor, Arms Down deftly and uniquely balances the synthetic and the organic, leaving some of its most jarring moments (the harrowing end of "What We Do") to cellos and trumpets, and its most beautiful moments (the aching crescendo of "Just So") to synthesizers and vocoders. In many ways, Arms Down can be best understood as the product of a band living, touring, and playing together in the iPod age; Ted Leo, Archers of Loaf, Chavez, Al Green, Bruce Springsteen, Mouse on Mars and Brainiac, all put on shuffle and reinterpreted through the hearts, minds and hands of five young music obsessives.

.:: Two years after the release of their debut album, Geography Cones, Get Him Eat Him is back with Arms Down, a unique, powerful and emotionally resonant record. After touring extensively through 2005 and 2006 with the likes of Xiu Xiu, The Constantines, Ted Leo, and The Arcade Fire, Get Him Eat Him settled down in July of 06' to begin recording the new album.

Co-produced by Jason Caddell, the album was recorded over multiple sessions at Brooklyn's Studio G, DC's famous Inner Ear Studio, and at the homes of both The Wrens'Charles Bissell and Get Him Eat Him's Matt LeMay. The result is a rich, multi-layered album comprised of the perfect mixture of synthetic and organic sound. Some of the album's most striking moments come through thanks to collaborations with other artists, including Zach Condon and veteran cellist Amy Domingues. But at its beautiful, weird core, Arms Down is all about the dedication and obsession of the members of Get Him Eat Him.

The sounds and ideas here are truly representative of a group of people steeped in the ipod age; constantly immersed in touring, playing together, and letting the diverse ideas of Ted Leo, Al Green, Bruce Springsteen, Chavez, and Mouse on Mars stream through their consciousness and flow into place on their own album.

*** listen "exposure", awesome guitar and keys work ***

download: get him eat him - arms down


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