Cloudy Oxblood Colour

Tracklist:

1. The World
2. Fatal Flaw
3. Funny Face
4. The Weight
5. Palinopsia
6. The Wound
7. You Ominously End
8. Early Onset
9. Genetic Lottery
10. Attic
11. Halley
12. Morning Person

There’s a song on There’s A Whole World Out There, the second album by Canadian four-piece Arm’s Length, called Palinopsia. Derived from the Greek for “again” (palin) and “seeing” (opsia), it’s a visual phenomenon marked by the persistent image of something that’s no longer actually there.

Singer and lyricist Allen Steinberg wrote the song about “pure devotion or love towards someone that may no longer be a part of your life,” but it also applies to the record as a whole. Throughout this album’s 12 songs, Steinberg wrestles with the part of life that’s been and gone. Yet there’s a noticeable difference between the person who wrote this record and the one who wrote Arm’s Length’s 2022 debut, Never Before Seen, Never Again Found.

“This record speaks more to my life at the moment than the past,” Steinberg explains, “even though there’s still a good amount of past on it. But it’s how I’m dealing with it now, as opposed to being enveloped in it - there’s more a sense of being on the other side of it, of seeing it with hindsight. The tone has shifted a little. I’m probably just a bit more mature, as my frontal lobe is developing as we speak.”