7/10

Arms & Armour have never sounded particularly interested in staying in one lane, and 'The Hunted' makes that restlessness feel like a strength. Across this ten-track collection, Lauren Voss and John Panza pull doom, post-punk, gothic atmosphere, electronics and industrial abrasion into one dense, unstable body of sound.

Recorded at the duo’s Dark Current studio inside a 140-year-old Cleveland drill bit factory, the setting feels almost too perfect. Guitars grind and groan, synths flicker through the murk, drum machines hammer out repetitive patterns and Voss’ vocals rise above the weight with a sense of drama that keeps the record from collapsing under its own density.

There are traces of Portishead, Depeche Mode and Cult of Luna in the atmosphere, but 'The Hunted' rarely settles into obvious reference points for long. One moment can feel ritualistic and funereal, the next strangely electronic or rhythmically sharp.

That flexibility is crucial because the record carries serious emotional weight as it plays. Recovery runs through the album in several forms: from illness, grief, political exhaustion, parenthood and the unavoidable awareness of ageing. Yet the music rarely feels defeated. If anything, its sheer physicality gives those subjects a strange kind of momentum.

The self-produced nature of the release only deepens that identity. Every distorted texture, electronic pulse and uneasy shift feels tied to the world they have built around the band, studio and wider Cleveland underground community.

Heavy, theatrical and frequently unpredictable, 'The Hunted' feels like Arms & Armour pushing every part of their sound outward at once. It's doom music with doors kicked open, allowing noise, electronics, post-punk tension and gothic drama to flood in.