Secret Meeting score: 70
by Philip Moss
After releasing their debut album in 2014 on -ANTI, one of America’s most revered indie labels, Arc Iris were not only dropped, but found themselves without a manager and or booking agent. But the way in which one reacts to diversity can in many ways determine their character. And from such adversities, front woman, Jocie Adams, felt there was only one direction that the Rhode Island natives could head. Moon Saloon followed in 2016 to yet more critical acclaim, but it is new album, Icon of Ego, that truly defines the difficult journey the group has been on.
Album opener and lead single, $GNMS is a reworking of Money Gnomes (taken from their debut album), and is a world apart from the original. The wide eyed, lo-fi folk sound has been stripped away, and replaced by a flurry tripping synths, guitar stabs and thumping Hounds of Love drums – before it explodes into a strutting chorus of clashing melodies, all of which emphasise Adams’ gorgeous top line vocal.
On Dylan & Me, Adams’ processed voice sounds remarkably like Annie Clark aka St Vincent, but this is no poor copycat job – in fact, it has more than enough about it to slot comfortably onto last year’s MASSEDUCTION LP. At the heart of the record, its title track – Icon of Ego – builds slowly into a swirl of glacial strings and sci-fi keys. While Chattermachines and Suzy again evoke Kate Bush, but this time as Adams’ vocals stretch into an effortless falsetto.
It would be amiss to suggest that Icon of Ego is all a total success – If You Can See Me and Turn It Up in particular feel somewhat like outtakes from an off-Broadway show that you wish you’d avoided – but, on the whole, this is a brash, confident record made by that a group that simply refused to be beat.
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