During the mid/late 1990's I was well into the college radio scene and as a result I ended up with a fair amount of albums from 1998 in my library. For the most part they have stood the test of time fairly well, but as the years go by it is easier to tell these albums come from a different era. Although many of the bands stay fresh on my mind, I've seen some, even a few signed to major labels, utterly vanish, without even a Wikipedia page to memorialize them. It's even worse for the minor-label and true indie groups of the time.
Arnold is very much a product of their time. They have a pastoral sound with lots of accoustic-based melodies punctuated by electronic noises with varying levels of distortion ("Ira Jones"), with a generous dash of WTF on collage-type songs like "Rabbit" and the not-so-hidden track medley following the punny yet head-bopping "Moroccan Roll Part 2". Take a trip back in time with the music video to one of the better tracks on the album and a good representation of their sound:
Arnold would go on to add a couple members to the band and survive the demise of the Creation label and the whole Britpop scene in general to eke out another album (Bahama) which I have never heard. Probably by virtue of the fact that the band name starts with the letter A, this remains high on my list of albums to keep a lookout for when I'm lurking among the used CD's at Amoeba.
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