It has been ten years since the Ar-Kaics, from Richmond, Virginia, released their amazing self-titled debut LP – thirteen energetic tunes that barely reached the three-minute mark. Not too long after that we saw the four-piece live during their European tour, a show full of electrifying garage rock. Older and wiser, and with a new drummer on board, their latest album See the World on Fire is a different story. Its eight songs are more subdued, more stretched out and more psychedelic than their previous work, also gloomier than you would expect based on the sunny cover photo from the recording location. “My head is in the past // The one I’ve been is the place I am // A photograph // The world just turned her head // Smiled and turned again // The place I am // Is getting dark again // It’ll never be the same”// It’s never been this late today,” we hear tellingly in standout track Stone Love, from which the record also takes its title. Although they still draw inspiration from the 60s on this new route, we hear original and mesmerizing music with which the band is taking big steps towards a future in which they can last for a long time. In our world, the Ar-Kaics certainly are not outsiders.
See the World on Fire is out now digitally, on CD and vinyl LP through Feel It Records / DIG! Records and Bachelor Records.