RECORD OF THE WEEK//Armlock – Trust

“In some respects, Trust is a simultaneous documentation of progression and regression. A homecoming of sorts, influenced by the interim where we developed our skills as producers and our skills as artists. Armlock, as a vehicle, seems like returning full circle to where we started.”

Trust began as voice memos passed back and forth between the two, with early demos being recorded when the pair lived together in Yarraville, Melbourne in 2019. It took a minute for them to find their songwriting stride after so much time spent composing electronic music, but the record came together while recording in Lam’s home studio in 2020. The band handled every aspect of Trust themselves, including production, recording, mixing, and mastering.

The sense of second-guessing and insecurity is at the heart of the record, musically and lyrically. Opening track “April” begins with Lam singing the lyrics, “Just when we were out of the gate/Honest to god I wanted to stay” over layered acoustic guitars. As the song builds, digital textures blink in and out of the background, Mitchell’s acoustic guitar working like a metronome until the drums finally come in. It’s a stunning moment, the band’s entire ethos presented in a song.

“Tabs” is a melancholic song about being in a relationship with someone who is doing a little bit better in life than you are. The song doesn’t pull any punches, with Lam lamenting, “I’ve got the losing touch/Wish that I kept tabs on all of the things that I wanted to have by now.” “Tabs” tackles themes of fear and shame, as Lam constantly wonders when his partner will finally see that he’s not enough. It’s a strained and distorted love song with a tenderness to the lilting melody, as a banjo and Juice Webster’s backing vocals rise at the song’s end.

“Turf War” is an ode to moving on without closure. A lowkey guitar plays as Lam sings, “Never spoke that’s how I fight,” nailing the way the things left unsaid often hit the hardest. There’s an essence of mixed feelings to the track, combining bitterness at the loss of the relationship with a thankfulness that it happened in the first place: “I loved when my fingers froze/I loved when we got the perks/I loved when we missed the flight/We were vengeful through the night.” The song ends with wordless harmonies over a soft but insistent drumbeat, accepting that things will continue on, for better or worse, with or without reconciliation.

The centerpiece of the record is “The Power of a Waterfall”. The song begins with acoustic guitar over a slow, trudging beat, with Lam’s vocals at their most disaffected. The chorus is among the band’s best, with Lam singing, “You’re a man/That’s what you said/Put food on the table and put sheets on the bed.” The song chronicles disappointment in the uninspiring expectations of masculinity and adulthood. The band describes it as being about “the general narrative of your adulthood that’s drilled in from a young age, and the relentless boredom that comes from fulfilling that prophecy… how mundane things cascade you into a kind of madness.” The result is a song that sounds disgusted and resigned all at once, as if there is no point in fighting against it any longer. Lam sings at the midpoint of the song, “Personal truth/Personal truth/The power of a waterfall.”