It’s worth questioning how much influence ex-Pantera/Down bassist Rex Brown has in his new band Arms of the Sun; to my knowledge he wasn’t a big songwriting contributor to either of his other main squeezes, and not for nothin’ Arms of the Sun sound like neither of them. But it really doesn’t matter because Arms of the Sun sound fucking sweet and are perfectly worthy of being judged independently of their very famous bassist.

The mid-paced, bluesy, guitar-driven rock that Arms of the Sun play kind of reminds me of latter day King’s X combined with the songwriting sensibility of the DeLeo brothers. Either you’ll like it or you won’t, and anyone expecting something even close to as heavy as Down (let alone Pantera) probably won’t. It’s rock, not metal. But Rex probably doesn’t care whether you like it or not. You don’t make music like this during your downtime from your main band unless it’s something you’re really into. It’s always cool to see what musicians do with their downtime when their main bands are still together — dudes from broken-up bands are a whole different story — because commercial success isn’t a concern meaning it’s all from the heart. And for the other dudes in this band it represents a chance to get a whole lot more exposure from sites like this one.

If any of this sounds interesting to you check out the songs that Arms of the Sun have posted on their MySpace page. Every single one of them is really good, but the first song “Falling to Pieces” which is also the heaviest is actually my least favorite one. If you live in Dallas you can catch Arms of the Sun live at the Lakewood Theater on April 17th.

-VN