Armlock by Bridgette Winten
Armlock, the up-and-coming Australian duo of Simon Lam and Hamish Mitchell, have announced their new album, Amazing, due out 5th February via Run For Cover Records.
Armlock take an electronic approach to the creation of deeply human indie rock, and on Amazing they’ve boiled their sound to its most crucial elements, distilling all the character and feeling that makes their music so resonant. To celebrate the album’s announcement, they’ve shared the lead single “Lifer“, which offers the perfect introduction to Armlock‘s uniquely minimalist yet deeply immersive music.
Watch the “Lifer” music video via YouTube HERE
Stream “Lifer” HERE
Pre-order Amazing HERE
The band discussed the new song, saying:
“We’ve written a lot of simple songs, but ‘Lifer’ might be the most straightforward song we’ve ever made. Around the time we wrote it, we became a little obsessed with using really plain, unpoetic lyrics. That probably came from a series of long and complicated conversations happening in real life at the time. There was something soothing about trying to boil down messy thoughts into the simplest words possible. The chorus kind of says everything the song is trying to say. It’s about finding confidence in someone else’s confidence, moving forward, and who you’re doing it with.
We shot the video ourselves (with our bass player, Geography) on a day off on tour in LA. We wanted to use a luxury car and Hollywood as a symbol of prosperity, and an overly positive omen for the future. We couldn’t afford to hire the car for the day but they let us sit in it for an hour or two.”
Amazing follows the band’s 2024 album, Seashell Angel Lucky Charm (which drew attention from the likes of Stereogum, The FADER, BrooklynVegan, FLOOD Magazine, Paste Magazine, Bandcamp Daily and more), and since then Armlock have been staying busy. The group toured heavily, including shows with Snail Mail (who recently sang their praises), The Momma, Belair Lip Bombs, and more, and they released two singles, “Strobe” and “Half Time“, both of which will appear on Amazing.
Long-time friends and collaborators, Lam (vocals and guitar) and Mitchell (guitar and keyboards) met studying jazz at Monash University in Melbourne, eventually discovering a shared love of electronic music. After a handful of electronic and dance-oriented projects (I’lls, Couture, Kllo) Armlock began in earnest and the two musicians began incorporating guitar into the songs they were making for the first time. “It was like ‘ok, we’re gonna make guitar music because we don’t really know how to do that and it will be an exciting challenge,” Lam explains. Mitchell adds, “Even now I would say my main influence for Armlock is just physically playing the guitar–it’s still so foreign to me, not like piano where I know my way around, so I’m always discovering something on the instrument itself.”
Amazing pushes their imaginative and sonically rich sound even further, at times recalling Pinback’s lean alternative, Alex G’s adventurous indie, or the wave of mysterious-yet-endearing “cloud-rock” coming out of Copenhagen’s prolific scene. And throughout the record Lam’s concisely affecting lyricism explores the kind of quiet desperation that can seep into everyday life as youth fully gives way to adulthood. “A lot of it is about the future,” he says. “Trying to build a life because you can feel that change is impending—it’s sort of like a race against time to get yourself set up, to burn through the habits of your twenties because things are getting serious. But how do you keep the flame alive at the same time?”
Armlock who filled out a string of the shows here for The Great Escape last year, have also announced a run of US tour dates, including Something In The Way Fest in February, see full itinerary below.
Armlock tour admat
Armlock
Amazing
Out February 5th on Run For Cover Records
1. Lifer
2. Half Time
3. Nectarine
4. From Here On
5. Amazing
6. Crystal
7. Did
8. Strobe
9. Kiss
10. Air
Upcoming Shows:
2 March – Washington, DC, USA – DC9
4 March – Philadelphia, PA, USA – Philamoca
5 March – New York, NY, USA – Zone One
6 March – Boston, MA, USA – Something In The Way Fest
8 March – Los Angeles, CA, USA –
Biography:
The mark of any great artist is the capacity to retain a beginner’s mind, to continue loving the thing you love while learning how to fold in what you learn as you grow. That’s true of Armlock, the Australian duo of Simon Lam and Hamish Mitchell, and integral to the creation of their new album, Amazing. Bringing an electronic approach to the creation of deeply human indie rock, they’ve boiled their sound to its most crucial elements, distilling all the character and feeling that makes their music resonant.
Friends for nearly two decades, Lam and Mitchell met studying jazz at Monash University in Melbourne and eventually explored various musical projects together, primarily in the experimental electronic scene. But Armlock was formed from their shared desire to push outside of their collective comfort zone, and that began with both of them learning something new: guitar. “We both started playing guitar for the first time pretty much when the band started,” explains Lam. “It was like ‘ok, we’re gonna make guitar music because we don’t really know how to do that and it will be an exciting challenge.” Mitchell adds, “Even now I would say my main influence for Armlock is just physically playing the guitar–it’s still so foreign to me, not like piano where I know my way around, so I’m always discovering something on the instrument itself.”
Amazing is the band’s third release following 2021’s Trust and 2024’s Seashell Angel Lucky Charm, and it’s their most substantial to date, stretching out past seven songs for the first time and perfectly atomising everything that makes Armlock so special. “We wanted this one to sort of feel like a culmination of this era of the band,” says Lam, “I think we were keen to find the center of this sound we’ve been shooting for the past few years. We wanted it to be the most Armlock record it could be.”
Recorded between the two members’ studios, Amazing takes all of Armlock’s hallmarks–crystal clear guitars playing simple-yet-satisfying chord progressions, taut, spare drum beats, warm vocals that feel like they’re being sung right into your ear, and creatively eccentric production flourishes–and presents them with the calm confidence of a band that’s assured in its identity. “Most of the time we record a bunch of ideas and then shape the song,” explains Lam. “Sometimes we’ll be in the flow, throwing stuff at it and then we listen at the end of the day and it’s like ‘wait this sounds insane’ and you have to backtrack until you end up with the real core of the song. I think we’re all so used to hearing things that are so heavily processed that we can actually sound more unique the less we alter something.”
Lam applies that to his lyrics as well, often opting for a less is more approach, stretching syllables into melodies that communicate just as much as the words themselves. “We’re all so quick to start saucing something up, I think it’s kind of refreshing to just not do that,” he says. “What if the guitar wasn’t crazy, what if the lyrics just say what they say.” Tracks like the starkly moving opener “Lifer” or standouts “Half Time” and “Crystal” combine head-bobbing beats with clean guitar lines, while elsewhere “Did” or “From Here On” almost sound like a live band being transmitted from some otherworldly dimension. And throughout the record Lam’s concisely affecting lyricism explores the kind of quiet desperation that can seep into everyday life as youth fully gives way to adulthood. “A lot of it is about the future,” he says. “Trying to build a life because you can feel that change is impending—it’s sort of like a race against time to get yourself set up, to burn through the habits of your twenties because things are getting serious. But how do you keep the flame alive at the same time?”
Amazing captures that dichotomy, a balance of soul and precision, spontaneity and meticulousness—an airtight beat here, an icy sharp guitar line there, flashes of peculiar vocal samples, an unexpected sound effect stretched out past all recognition. It all coalesces into music that drips with intentionality and, in turn, allows you to delight in the sum of its parts.
Armlock online: