West Covina is somewhere I’ve never heard of, but with the wonders of Google Maps and Wikipedia I managed to discover that it’s in California, a few miles east of Los Angeles. It was formed to prevent the city of Covina placing a sewage farm in the area.
As a result, it’s actively attempted not to be a shit-hole. Literally. This amuses me.
It’s also home to prog-rockers Arity, from whom I got an email the other week. Apologies for taking my time getting to you! They just released their debut EP Physics Fall Apart and, obviously, are at pains to get word of it out to everyone.
I’ll be the first to put my hand up and say that prog is not my favourite genre. Although I’m constantly in awe of the musicianship involved, I often find the resulting tracks a bit over-long and widdly. As such, I tend to treat it as background music than stuff I’d actively listen to.
It’s to Arity’s credit, then, that I find most of the tracks quite listen to-able. There’s definitely enough “widdle” and arrhythmic time signatures to please the most ardent of prog fans, but at the same time there’s a structure that doesn’t throw me out.
Vocals of both harsh and clean varieties are used in some tracks (the title in particular), and they’re all handled by lead singer Nicole. She also wields an eight-string guitar because, you know, six strings just aren’t enough.
They say themselves that they’re out to play the world now that the EP’s out, and good luck to them. With a variety of songs from under four minutes to over seven, there’s a good amount of variety on there which should allow them to tweak their shows depending on the audience.
