Story Untold – Armatage Shanks

Armatage Shanks is a band out of Hamar, Norway, and Story Untold is their first album in 12 years. The bands first album was released in 2012, titled Lost and Broken.

Straight away it’s clear that Armatage Shanks knows the craft of writing melodic punkrock, combining their American style punk with some skate-punk and pop-punk, and perhaps even a bit of emo if I dare to say so. Personally this is a style that probably has the toughest time leaving a mark on me. In my ears it easily becomes a carbon-copy of the influences, not bringing much new to the table.

And Armatage Shanks doesn’t invent any wheels here. No Belief sounds a lot like Bad Religion, the intro in Hurricane reminds me of the rockier side of Millencolin, and overall there’s a bit of Yellowcard, Mest and New Found Glory, to mention a few, in the sound. The band has a couple of playlists on their Spotify-page that clearly shows where the inspiration comes from. I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing to wear your influences on your sleeves though. Armatage Shanks has a really good sense of melodies, good lyrics that are a bit more on the personal side rather than outright political, they are stellar musicians, and combined with a pretty nice production this is an album that is really easy on the ears.

The band emotes energy and heart in just the right places. They are never afraid of slowing things down but can also step on the gas, making it a varied and not tiresome listen throughout. Overall the album reminds me why I got into the more American style of punkrock when I started listening to punk. It’s well written and performed.

Story Untold by Armatage Shanks is an album that I enjoy listening to. However, I would have a hard time picking the band out if you played me them along with a bunch of other band in the same genre. And that’s perhaps the biggest issue here, a slight lack of an unique sound. But other than that this is a nice punkrock record that fans of the genre should check out.