Wooden Arms @ Norwich Arts Centre
Chaotic balance at its best
I saw Wooden Arms play under this very roof back in 2015. Back then, with Alex Carson dominating centre stage with his piano, everything was so neat, so playful and, at times, so very quaint. And I thought ‘ah, how nice this all is.’ Over a year later, and with a clutch of new material on the way, tonight they open up with a roaring carnival turbulence. It’s less a meadow dream, more a fairground on substances. I stand a little straighter and think ‘ah, how wonderful this all is.’
Driven along by thudding, chattering percussion beats, Wooden Arms have built on the scope of their sound and grown into an enthralling watch. Their ever-changing personnel shrink and expand and rotate around the stage, a collective that forms for a fleeting moment before morphing into something else, moments that are each distinct and worthwhile, swinging from the deeply and resoundingly sorrowful up into highs that are filthily grandiose. They handle their range with sure hands, with 20,000 Streets Under the Sky and the thrashing Trick of the Light standing out at each end of the Arms’ considerable spectrum of song writing.
As this quite indefinable group of noisemakers continue to pull out and follow the threads of their talent it’s a joy to see a band so alive in the moment. They’ve opened up something more visceral than they had before, where even the most delicate of cello murmurs carry weight among a million other things going on. Tender and brutal, barking and soothing, this is chaotic balance at its best.
