Archive - Call To Arms & Angels (3LP)

Archive’s Call To Arms & Angels landed on 29 April 2022 via the band’s own Dangervisit imprint, and it feels every bit like a group stepping back into a world that shifted under their feet. It’s their first studio album since 2016’s The False Foundation, and it arrives as a big, searching double set that pulls together the strands they’ve been twisting since the late 90s. You get trip hop shadows, widescreen post rock, and those slow-bloom builds that have made their live shows such a cathartic place to stand.

The band’s shifting line-up of voices remains a secret weapon. Dave Pen’s weary intensity, Pollard Berrier’s clean ache, and Holly Martin’s luminous presence each tilt the songs in a different direction, with Darius Keeler and Danny Griffiths shaping the moods like patient architects. There’s a clear sense of purpose to the sequencing. “Shouting Within” sets the tone with a nervous synth pulse and skittering drums, a song that never tips into bombast but keeps the temperature high. “We Are The Same?” builds like a slow march, tension coiling around a chanted hook that sticks to your ribs long after the needle lifts. Then there’s “Daytime Coma,” a 15 minute centrepiece that takes its time. It starts like a murmur in a quiet room, layers rise one at a time, and suddenly you’re inside a storm of strings, guitar drones, and clipped vocal mantras. Archive have always excelled at the long game. Here they play it with a steady hand.

What’s striking is how human the record feels in spite of its size. The arrangements breathe. Real strings bring grain and air to the electronics. Pianos are left dusty round the edges. Guitars crunch but never crowd. “Mr Daisy” leans into a crooked kind of pop, bright on the surface, unsettling underneath. “Everything’s Alright” arrives like a lullaby with a cracked smile, the title working as both comfort and question. The production keeps things tactile, so even when the songs swell, you can still pick out the scrape of bow on string or a cymbal’s last shimmer. It makes the anxiety threaded through the lyrics feel lived-in rather than theoretical.

If you’ve ridden with Archive since You All Look The Same To Me or Controlling Crowds, the connective tissue is obvious. Those records taught patience, and the payoff was always in the third or fourth movement of a song, when something clicks and the floor drops away. Call To Arms & Angels honours that tradition while sounding very much like a record made in the thick of recent years. Isolation, information overload, power and powerlessness, the need to move towards each other rather than retreat. The title points to both resistance and grace, and the music toggles between the two with quiet resolve.

It also happens to be a terrific listen on wax. The Call To Arms & Angels vinyl pressing spreads the sprawl across multiple sides, which suits the dynamics. Side breaks give “Daytime Coma” and its neighbours room to reset your ears, and the low end blooms in a way that digital doesn’t quite capture. If you’re crate-digging, it sits nicely next to other Archive albums on vinyl, and it’s the sort of set I’d recommend to someone wandering into a Melbourne record store on a rainy afternoon asking for something cinematic but not cold. You can buy Archive records online without much fuss, though I’ll always put in a plug for keeping your favourite local stocked with the good stuff. For those browsing from afar, plenty of shops shipping vinyl records Australia wide have copies.

There’s a quiet confidence here that comes from a band making the record they needed to make, not chasing a trend or pretending the world isn’t messy. The singles did their job of teasing open the door, but the full run is where it all lands. Songs bleed into each other and then snap into focus at the right moment, and by the time the final notes fade you feel rinsed, in the best way. If you’re new to Archive, this is a generous entry point. If you’ve been around for the long stretch, it’s one of those releases that reminds you why Archive vinyl has a dedicated section in so many collections. Call To Arms & Angels doesn’t shout its importance. It just holds steady, keeps its nerve, and lets the music do the heavy lifting.