TW: mention of suicide and ED
Arm’s Length is back with their sophomore album, There’s A Whole World Out There. This is their first release on Pure Noise Records after signing with them this past February. There’s A Whole World Out There touches on similar themes to their first album, Never Before Seen, Never Again Found: childhood trauma, nostalgia, and grief, but this time through a more mature lens. It’s evident that they’ve emotionally grown over the last few years and are now looking back, reflecting, with more self-awareness and just a touch of dark humor.
The album kicks off strong and loud with “The World” and “Fatal Flaw,” two classic Arm’s Length style tracks with heart-on-your-sleeve lyrics, intense vocals, and heavy breakdowns. “The World” feels almost parental, lyrically, describing a relationship where one person is holding on too tight and overthinking everything. “Fatal Flaw” (my favorite track on the record) is about acknowledging your flaws, accepting them, and healing your inner child. In the chorus, singer Allen Steinberg belts, “Look at what you’ve done / You see how far you’ve come / Romanticize the past for fucking once / You know your younger self would be so proud.”
The latest single ahead of the album’s release, “The Weight,” explores struggling with eating disorders and wishing to be small both physically and metaphorically. “Don’t want to take up much space / So I get the best hiding place / How can you tell me I’m safe / If I am seen?” Steinberg said of the song at their Omaha show last week, “This goes out to anyone struggling with putting food in their body,” and emphasized that it is particularly special to the band.
What really sets There’s A Whole World Out There apart from any of Arm’s Length’s previous releases is the addition of banjo to a handful of tracks, giving a folksy, almost country edge to an otherwise heavy album. A stand out example of this is heard on “You Ominously End” — the bright, twangy banjo at the song’s start makes for a stark contrast to the devastating lyrics about a survived suicide attempt by a loved one.
Another lovely reprieve comes with the slower, acoustic track “Early Onset,” which features a beautiful string arrangement that slowly builds to blend with the overall tone and pace of the rest of the album. We close with “Morning Person,” a beautiful interpretation of loving someone in every form, no matter how bad it hurts or even if it ruins you and kills you in the end. I’m personally a big fan of ending an album on a longer track, and “Morning Person” uses its nearly seven minutes runtime to tie a big, perfect, dramatic bow around an incredible emo album.
This album feels like going to therapy, learning how to heal — acknowledging that the past really happened and figuring out how to move past it. It ebbs and flows through heartache and loss and the rush of being alive. There’s A Whole World Out There is sure to appear on many Album Of The Year lists in the scene for 2025.
You can catch Arm’s Length on tour this spring with Prince Daddy & The Hyena, Riley!, and Bike Routes.