A couple of years ago, melodic bass duo ARMNHMR had been putting out some of the most incredible tunes to grace the feelsy genre, enough for fans to pop the question: Is an album coming? It was a question that the duo were thinking about carefully, devoting hours upon hours towards creating.
After pacifying fans for more than a year with the promise of something big on the horizon (and a couple of small projects including a dirty EP on Yellow Claw’s Barong Family imprint), ARMNHMR (pronounced Arm N Hammer if you were wondering) began the album journey with their first single off it, a Rico & Miella collaboration titled ‘Save You Know’. After four more riveting and excruciatingly teasing singles, featuring talents such as Karra and Nevve, it was time to let the world hear the entire body of work.
With eight new songs debuting on ‘The Free World’ (an almost unheard-of phenomenon these days in EDM), fans were in for a ride. The record starts of with a personal favorite, a Melanie Fontana feature titled ‘Forever Young’, holding allure in its mesmerizing vocal topline and signature ARMNHMR cascading synths amidst dynamic and slow drops. This tune set the tone for rest of the album, with almost all songs situated within the melodic bass arena with different minor twists on the ARMNHMR sound.
‘Hundred To Zero’ sees progressive house elements enter melodic dubstep, while Prismo and Akari & Brayden Kehler collaborations ‘Without You’ and ‘I’ll Be Fine’ imbibe some indie elements and clear acoustic guitars. ARMNHMR invite previous collaborator Luma on a throwback styled tune ‘I Don’t Know You’, while Micah Martin provides the dark emo-rock vibes to keep the old ARMNHMR sound alive in their debut album.
Each track on ‘The Free World’ finds a basis in melodic bass music and retains the distinctive ARMNHMR sound that fans have come to love, but each one sounds inexplicably different. Perhaps this description from the duo themselves sums up the album the best:
The Free World is the place we as music lovers want to escape to. We wrote this for our fans hoping that when they listen, they are transported to a place and time where everything was just right.
ARMNHMR
