Cursed Arrows

There’s something eerily prescient about Cursed Arrows’ third full-length album The Madness of Crowds. Although Jackie and Ryan Stanley composed most of the songs prior to their move here last October, the music is an urgent and appropriate backdrop for the early months of 2011. The album addresses themes of violence and desolation, environmental degradation and the search for meaning within the unrest and chaos. The triumph of this album, however, is that it’s never mired in despair. These songs move and cajole us and then explode with stunning and impossibly vital grooves. This is the triumph of The Madness of Crowds---it’s heavy but never heavy-handed.