PREMIERE | Unconditional Arms, "Multihost"

Jeff Wright of Unconditional Arms, Completr, et al. — photographed by YgodYzines.

Featured over a year back in Week in Pop via his solo act Completr; Jeff Wright returns with his grandiose act Unconditional Arms, presenting the debut of the mighty and devastating “Multihost”. Featured off the upcoming album Formation arriving April 3 via the Bay Area imprint (ran by Tsunami Bomb’s Andy Pohl) Sell The Heart Records — Wright along with Ross Traver, Randy Staat, Christopher Sturm, Tyler Thalken, Julie Lydell and Scott Goodrich develop their most monumental artifices of expressive sound that roars like a towering colossus standing tall as an intermediary between the heavens and earth.

“Multihost” grows and expands like a imagination stoking entity of immense size, shape and grandiose presence. The curious chords contribute to the character of something that resembles a feeling of intense gravity or an inexplicable agent of incomprehensible powers. Unconditional Arms employ progressive and post-rock approaches that orchestrate and arrange an instrumental behemoth that would serve as cinematic inspiration for a CGI-developed entity served up by a savvy special effects department in post production. The track is also timely in the sense of how it pertains to the world’s current COVID-19 crisis as Jeff and company create what can be interpreted by the contemporary ear as a heavy theme that depicts the extents and unfathomable depths of a viral agent (the likes of which our modern age has never before witnessed). Unconditional Arms have made an important anthem for our uncompromising and uncertain era of threats ultimately unknown.

Jeff Wright shared the following reflections meditating on the new Unconditional Arms album Formation:

For years, I had every intention of making a second full-length record for Unconditional Arms. As time went on, the band progressed in ways the made me lose sight of my original vision for the project. In addition, when I wrote and recorded Kinship I was twenty-two years old, living in a slumlord — owned loft in West Oakland that I paid cash under the table for, working roughly 3-4 days a week until the wee hours of the morning. I did not carry 10% of the responsibilities that I do today. Time, madness, logistics and honestly a seed of hopelessness for the project set in and I was unable to move forward in the way I wanted to. I felt lost. I developed some other projects to explore those feelings in the interim, of which I still participate in, but I could never shake the feeling that I did something to Unconditional Arms that I never wanted to do: I turned it into a regular band, rather than a meaningful project.

Formation is the culmination of many things, but more so a reflection of my flawed ideation of compassion. An auditory exploration of my constant grapple with time, relationships and responsibility. It is a gift that I have wanted but did not have the knowledge to receive. A love letter to my growth.

Unconditional Arms' new album Formation will be available April 3 via Sell The Heart Records.