With their first (and last!) full release record playing on repeat in my headphones since 2015, The Arcs dropped their latest full-length release, Electrophonic Chronic, at the tail-end of January. A time capsule of sorts, musical magic captured in time, this record functions in many ways as a tribute to band member Richard Swift, who passed away in 2018.
Electrophonic Chronic hearkens back, and not too terribly far, to the same sort of emotionally raw lyricism you’ll find on The Black Keys’ Turn Blue, heavy, but somehow emotionally rewarding. With the majority of tracks already scaffolded in 2015/2016, the only task keeping Electrophonic Chronic from being released as the unit it is today was the putting of pieces together. This process started in 2021, when vocalist/guitarist Dan Auerbach sent some Dropbox links of these old tracks to multi-instrumentalist in the band Leon Michels – they then started working. The end result is a very personal, bittersweet piece.
Electrophonic Chronic is more than just a sophomore album, it’s a taste of what it might’ve been like to hang with the band. It feels very personal, like the listener is a fly on the wall through the band’s tour and studio adventures. Electrophonic Chronic is the perfect example of what The Arcs always were, a band of friends who just liked to play around with sounds and listen to music. That energy is evident here – it’s raw, but that kind of rawness that only comes from well-seasoned musicians just doing their thing, and doing it well, even when they’re just having fun. You can hear the love they had for what they were doing and for each other.
Electrophonic Chronic explores all ends of the emotional spectrum in its 38-minute package. “Sunshine” is a bright blue-sky day in sonic form, “Behind the Eyes” is an introspective masterpiece on the two-sided nature of people. “Heaven is a Place” honors the grief and pain associated with loss while maintaining a sense of hopefulness, “Backstage Mess” is pure fun and happiness from the road somehow pieced together into a solid home-video-esque song. “Only One for Me” is a heartbreakingly relatable lament of loneliness (and acceptance, depending on your perspective), “A Man Will Do Wrong” (a gender-bent version of the Helene Smith soul number) is a beautiful aching description of love and the lengths we’ll go to for it. I could go on and on.
Thematically, where Yours Dreamily seems to have its moments evoking that immediate and raw, yet poetic, response to hurt, Electrophonic Chronic feels like that years-later acceptance and healing. Despite these songs having not actually been recorded that far apart in time, there’s a maturity and growth to the theme of these tracks, still raw, but having started to heal from the experience. Several of the tracks delve into some really heavy concepts, almost dark at times, but the way the band executes it lends an air of hopefulness. There’s a feeling of acceptance and healing underlying these heavy themes. “Love Doesn’t Live Here Anymore” for example, has a focus on the unpacking of generational trauma and letting go of a toxic relationship, with the simple resolution of “I’ve got more love to give today / more than you could ever steal away.” There’s an acknowledgment and honoring of pain while simultaneously healing from it, and it feels especially fitting now in the context of the record honoring Swift. Much of the record functions this way, and it’s indicative of the group’s growth over the course of their time together not as musicians, but as friends, through talking and working through their own personal issues and being each other’s’ source of support, something Auerbach has mentioned in recent interviews. You really can feel the love these guys have for each other in this record; it’s remarkable.
On top of being emotionally rich and eclectic, the record also exudes one of my favorite things about the Arcs, their inability to be closed into one genre. Even within a single track, you’ll find multiple expressions of various genres. Electrophonic Chronic explores elements of 60s soul and funk, classic country, indie rock, and even a touch of electronic. Couple that with one of the best voices in modern music delivering those gut-wrenching yet somehow therapeutic lyrics and you’ve got one of the best records of the last and the next decade.
As a self-proclaimed Arcs superfan who genuinely never thought they’d see another release from the band, Electrophonic Chronic was worth every bit of excitement and hype it’s been given since it was announced last October. Though it feels in many ways like a new chapter for the band, it functions as a beautiful piece of closure, tying up loose thematic ends and honoring a musical genius and good friend in a way he’s sure to be proud of. It remains on track to be my favorite record released this year. I hope it’s not the end of the Arcs story, but if it is, what a damn good way to go out. RIP Swift.