• AllMyVinyl #15
• Band: The Arkhams
• Album Title: Almost Hits
• Release Date: ? Oct 2020
• Date purchased: 4 Mar 2021
• Location purchased: Bandcamp Website
• Color of vinyl: translucent yellow
• Number of discs: 1
• Links: [ Wikipedia | Discogs | Band Website | Complete album NOT on Youtube ]

The Arkhams are a band out of New York that I find it quite hard to quantify. I know the bassist from another band out of New York that he used to be with – the ArkTones. But the Arkhams are by their own admission “Psychobilly which is melodic, danceable, and FUN!”.

I can relate to that, as I listened to the album this morning, I found it light and very enjoyable. The other band I know Matt the bassist from is rockabilly – this isn’t THAT, but you can hear elements of it. In fact when I started the album, the opening guitar sound from “The Road to Arkham” reminded me of Dick Dale and the guitar sound of the 1960’s beach bikini movies.

When I finished this album, I turned it over and played it a second time, I really enjoyed it. It’s one of those albums I don’t reach for first very often, but when I do play it, I really enjoy it. I should listen to it more than I do.

I’m not getting into individual songs too much as the songs all tended to blend into each other when I listened. That’s not a bad thing, they were quite good, but it’s kind of a sonic landscape that in my mind was more one song than a dozen. Having said that a few tracks stuck out a bit. Mind of My Own. Evil$, Running Wheel, and Screamin George stood out.

The last song on the album is a Motorhead cover (Them Not Me). I’m not enough of a Motorhead expert to know if it’s a good cover or not, but I liked the song here.

I picked this up when Matt was still in the ArkTones, and one night on a band live stream they talked about this album. I snapped it up blind as I honestly didn’t know much in the way of the Arkhams sound. The vinyl I got was a translucent yellow vinyl, of which there were only 51 copies pressed. Mine was 47 of 51. You can still get the album in another color or straight black, but not the yellow one I have, that’s sold out.

Their website says this album is a Greatest Hits (sort of), that it contains “some classics, some newbies, and some unreleased tracks.” So it’s a good mix of the band’s sound, which as they say is “fun”. When a band invents a term to describe itself (Psychobilly), it’s hard to describe what that actually means.