(Video Review) "Velleity" by Arms Akimbo

On May 8th, Los Angeles, California indie-rock group Arms Akimbo released their music video for “Velleity” off of their viral Spotify smash EP entitled “The Wrong Kind of Dance Party”. This group is bound to take over where Death Cab For Cutie left off in the indie-rock world.

Arms Akimbo is composed of Peter Schrupp, Christopher Kalil, Matthew Sutton, and Colin Boppell. Their story is pretty typical, just four friends from college that met, and were inspired by music and decided to start a band. Arms Akimbo were inspired by groups like Portugal. The Man, Local Natives, and Hippo Campus. Via Spotify, they have achieved notoriety by peaking at number 7 on the Canadian viral charts, while peaking at #45 on the U.S. viral charts, and #48 on the Global viral charts. Because of this and the success of their previous EP entitled “Vignettes”, they have shared the stage with the likes of Walk The Moon, Said The Whale, Field Medic, IRONTOM, and The Animals. On February of this year, Arms Akimbo released “The Wrong Kind Of Dance Party”.

In terms of the video content, it starts off with pairs of shoes piled together with cigarette butts, bottle caps, and other things that you would see at a college house party. The video starts at a bouncy castle and ends up with the band performing on the couch at a house party, which feels like that after hours vibe where everyone is very chilled out and prepared to crash after a raucous night. The arrangements that Arms Akimbo has for the music video “Velleity” certainly fits that description.

In terms of the music and lyrical content, Arms Akimbo personifies that laidback California vibe to their music, while the arrangements are intricate and has a bit of that shoegaze vibe due to the complex guitar work that is interwoven in the music, the vocals sound sleepy and laidback, which really fits the music. I love the laidback jam outro that will cause the listener to sway their bodies to the music. This video certainly whets the appetite for the listener and makes you crave more from Arms Akimbo. “Velleity” doesn’t get much more chill and laidback than this as Madness To Creation gives this an 8 out of 10 stars.