For a while, The Armed have styled themselves not unlike a Maoist cult: mutinous, muscular and megalomaniac. With The Future Is Here and Everything Needs to Be Destroyed they declare a great leap forward, the shattering of a sordid system. The album is full of just rage and thinly veiled allusions. For instance, The Armed released the single »Kingbreaker« shortly after the height of the »No Kings« protests in the US. But was this a radical statement or strategic marketing?
In any case, »The Future« is drenched in irony. For, on a musical level, what is to come sounds just like what came before. The album combines elements of everything The Armed have pelted at the world so far. You’ll find the metalcore song structures of »Untitled« (2015), the maximalism of »Ultrapop« (2021) and the alt-rock refrains of »Perfect Saviours« (2023). Yet, perhaps, they have never integrated disparate moments this seamlessly.
»Local Millionare«, for example, starts with an Indie stanza, explodes in Hardcore screaming, transitions to a Noise rock bridge that is being foiled by a Beach Boys-esque A-cappella. The final refrain is …everything all at once. »The Future« is tailored to overwhelm when first approached. But the further one delves into the chaos the better it gets. This turns »The Future« into an exercise of enduring the horrors that are lying ahead.
