The Ark are bowing out of music in 2011. They released a Greatest Hits album yesterday, ‘Arkeology’, and will commence a final tour in the coming months. Then it’s all over. They split.
They’ve left their fans with two swansongs to add to their legacy though. ‘Breaking Up With God’ was the single released late last year, and now we have ‘The Apocalypse Is Over’, which you can listen to below. And this is a real tear-jerker of a song, if you’re a big fan! Never ones to shy away from being melodramatic, it’s a song filled with lyrics that are plainly and simply about the journey they’ve experienced and shared together with their fans, and that has now unquestionably and undeniably come to an end – it’s over. Paired with the lyrics, and serving to totally accentuate them, is an epic and triumphant melody that adds to the sadness. We’re hearing a very Scandinavian tune here. In fact, there are parts within the chord progression here that absolutely remind us of another famous Swedish song about loss and ‘the end’ – Abba’s ‘The Winner Takes It All’.
Kudos to The Ark for bowing out in such a way. Rather than leaving fans in confusion and with false hope for a long period of time, they’ve said quite clearly that this is the end, and presented a song that not only cements it, but celebrates what went before.
