ARKELLS – Campfire Chords (2020)

March, 2020:  the world came to a sudden halt as the Covid-19 pandemic spread from city to city, nation to nation.  We isolated in our homes and offices to keep our loved ones safe, and we waited it out.  For bands, everything stopped.  Gigs were cancelled, and recordings had to be done remotely from home.  On the bright side, this resulted in some brilliant music from legacy bands.  For the Arkells, it meant stopping all work on the next studio album (Blink Once) and separating for four months.  At the encouragement of bassist Nick Dika, the band got down to their singer-songwriter basics with a series of stripped-down versions of the “greatest hits” (so to speak).  Keyboardist Anthony Carone assembled the individual pieces into something cohesive, and Campfire Chords was born!  The title refers to the “campfire test”:  if a song sounds good done acoustically around a campfire, then it’s a good song.  Bon Jovi have a similar philosophy.

Campfire Chords opens with a surprisingly somber “Knockin’ At Your Door”, which was more of an anthem in its single release.  Souful backing vocals and pedal steel guitar gives it an entirely new feel.  Although everything about the melody is the same, it feels like a new song.

Following this is a brand new song:  “Quitting You”.  This lovely acoustic country ballad is just a beautiful love song.  Fiddles and acoustic guitars ring clean, while tambourines jangle in the background.  “I thought of maybe quittin’…but there’s no quittin’ you.”   Because it’s the Arkells, there are some cool “woah-oh-oh” singalongs too, because what’s a campfire without a singalong?  An Arkells classic.

A second new song, “Years in the Making” opens with harmonica and a strong Max Kerman melody.  This track later appeared on Blink Once in a vastly different arrangement.  A true Arkells anthem, you can hear it on this stripped down version.  It’s all about the melody, and then the hit of the chorus.  The piano break in the middle is really nice.

One of their earliest hits, “Whistleblower”, is slowed down and intensified with soulful backing vocals and steel guitars.  This one simmers, compared to the manic original.  It has a different kind of intensity, but the tension is there.  Another early hit, “Michigan Left” from the same album comes across really well acoustically.  The “woah-oh!” chorus is intact, and though it’s slower, it’s just as uplifting.  An even earlier song, from their debut album Jackson Square, called “I’m Not the Sun” comes next.  It’s gentle and floaty, though the lyrics are dark.  “So don’t let me be your guiding light, ’cause I’ll get you lost in the dark, I’m not the sun, there’s no guarantee, ’cause I burn out hard like a spark.”  Returning to the present day, “Don’t Be A Stranger” from the Rally Cry album is a song that might be an improvement.  Taking off the layers of polish, but leaving the string section in, it just breathes really smoothly now.  It’s the same song, but it hits differently.

An absolute highlight of this album is the new version of “Comes to Light” from their best album High Noon.  There’s a Bruce Cockburn feel to the guitars; quintessentially Canadian.  This one just cuts clean through.  The steel guitar is featured again, and the melodies shine.  “And with my headphones on, as I fall asleep, you’re my barricade from intruding dreams.”  While the original is hard to top, this one has magic to it that can’t be defined.  A masterclass in re-imagining.

Another Arkells classic, “A Little Rain (A Song For Pete)” takes us to church!  The Arkells go gospel, and do it like it’s second nature!  The rich choir-like backing vocals lend it an undeniable authenticity, but Max Kerman absolutely nails it too.  Not bad for a guy who, by the lyrics, “never tried religion”.  A little rain ain’t bringing him down goes the chorus, and that feeling is washed upon the listener like a baptism.  Pay attention to Nick Dika’s expressive and lyrical bass work.

Back to Rally Cry, the anthem “Eyes on the Prize” is stripped down to just acoustic and voice.  Though it was written pre-pandemic, one lyric rings way more true from the perspective of 2020:  “I think I’m done with the motherfuckin’ hiatus”!  The choir returns with Max on the chorus, and a harmony chimes in, but the music remains mostly simple acoustic guitars and soulful singing.

Revisiting the early years again, the light and airy “Book Club” is a delight.  The backing vocalists enhance its soulful feel, which was always there on the album version.  Following this is the slow and moving “And Then Some” from Morning Report.  One of the Arkells most beautiful love songs, it falls in the category of “personal favourite”.  The original has a real pulse to it, and this one is quite different in that way, but there’s also a newly acquired softness to it.  “Kiss Cam” from Michigan Left works well, given the lyrics.  “This campfire won’t last forever, the Hip have only wrote so many songs.”  Sadly true.  “We can’t stay up north for the summer, head back to the city, find a job.”  Can relate!  Speaking of personal favourites, Jen loves “My Heart’s Always Yours” in particular.  This acoustic version is transformed into much softer fare, like a dreamy morning anthem.

A steel guitar-laden version of the anthem “Hand Me Downs” is a back-end highlight.  Then “11:11”, already a brilliant single in its own right, is enhanced by the acoustic treatment.  This is another one that may in fact surpass the original.  At the end of the day, it all comes down to personal taste.  If you have more attachment to one version of another, that’ll colour what you prefer.

Finishing out the CD are the anthem “Relentless”, which always had a soul/R&B flavour.  Here it simmers intensely like hot pavement.  The closing track is the immortal “Leather Jacket” from High Noon, known to laymen as the “pay phone song”.  Steel guitars take us out to the country and that’s where the album goes as it rides off in the sunset like some kind of Canadian cowboy driving a dusty pickup truck through the gravel.  This is tagged by a lovely singalong (with horns) of the main hook, “You call me up from a pay phone, and I said who the fuck uses a pay phone!  There’s a crazy New Orleans outro like you’ve never heard, and that’s it!

These kind of “re-imagining” albums (if you will) can be so hit and miss.  I mentioned Bon Jovi earlier.  Remember that atrocity they did, This Left Feels Right?  It was so, so wrong.  The Arkells made no such mis-step here.  They key is…they didn’t have to take a left turn.  They just needed to turn to a different side of their sound, and focus in like that for a whole album.  The result is an acoustic album that has depth, variety, and in some cases, some versions that could top the originals.

You can’t get “Quitting You” anywhere else; to date this is its only release.

4.5/5 stars