The Armed are a Detroit band that plays angry and aggressive in the vein of The Dillinger Escape Plan. Young & Beautiful sees the band move more and more into that territory, as the Ep is filled with aggressive riffs and spastic timings and all of the anger one could ever need in a life time. Although it is unoriginal, and the band isn't trying to do something completely new. Instead this is a great listen for someone who wants something quick and heavy, and is something that people who enjoy this kind of music should check out.
The Armed waste no time here, the song Young & Beautiful demonstrates what to expect here in the first few minutes and while you've definately heard it before it's still a fun, angry time. Mujahoudini starts off as an excelent song, it even features Chris Pennie drumming, and from the moment it starts it makes me want to get up and move more than any other song that they've recorded, even though the song falters towards the end seemingly because the band just didn't know what to do with it, so they just let it end.
The biggest flaw on here is the song Pushing Daisies. It sounds like a B side from the band's These Are Lights time. You can really tell because it doesn't even come close to reaching the quality of the songs on there. The chorus isn't really catchy and neither is the main riff on it, the song just sounds plain awkward. The song isn't nearly as spastic as the rest of the Ep, and it really sticks out like a sore thumb. It ruins the momentum the band has going, although they do pick it up in the next songs. Nothing else really stands out as glaringly bad, or good really. The final two songs are killer but you're to move this out of your daily rotation rather quickly, having very little staying power. If you take one thing from here let it be the final song, You Have Died. Much like Mujahoudin it starts of incredibly strong and makes me want to throw stuff and break things, but instead of the band just leting the song taper off the song gets quiet and then builds up, in quite a predictable fashion mind you, and then ends with the band chanting USA USA USA! It ends things off nicely for Young & Beautiful.
Overall if you like metalcore, or spastic Dillinger-esque music there's no reason to not listen to this. While it's no where close to original the band does a good job at making it sound fresh. While some may liked the style found of their Lp a little more, this still proves to be good in it's own right and hopefully the band will start to morph into their own style and will truly be a force to be reckoned with. Oh, and it's free on their website.
