The Sound of Arrows

After much time spent honing and perfecting, The Sound of Arrows’ incredible, grand pop debut album ‘Voyage’ is finally available.

The 11-track album is a grand affair mixing cinematic sounds with a euro-pop edge to deliver set of euphoric uplifting tracks. Reference points here include Pet Shop Boys, Deepest Blue and Diagram of the Heart, plus even a bit of M83.

Opening track ‘Into the Clouds’ was a single in 2009, which shows what a labour of love this has been, but the track still retains currency with today. Like a Jean Michel Jarre track this is littered with lasers and other synth sounds, but with a bouncy euro vocal to enhance the track.

‘Wonders’ is very much a Diagram of the Heart (what did happen to their album release?) sounding track, slightly less poppy but still mightily catchy hook.

There are plenty of stand-out tracks for me including ‘Magic’ are very poppy up beat track with child chorus. This has used as a soundtrack to a short film on You Tube and has attracted over 1½ million hits. This is a direction Sound of Arrows want to explore, stating they are 50% about the music and 50% about the visuals.

‘Ruins of Rome’ is an atmospheric track that sounds better and better with each listen; it is understated as it takes a PSB route with near spoken vocals, and again uses child vocals for the chorus. ‘Longest Ever Dream’ follows with a Phil Oakey / Giorgio Moroder styled opener before a perfect pop song follows, again bright breezy and mightily catchy.

‘Conquest’ picks up the Jean Michel jarred synths again to perfect use, whilst ‘There Is Still Hope’ is pure cinematic magic, big and atmospheric, building from lowly beginnings into an epic number.

‘Lost City’ closes it all down in the same way ‘Into The Clouds’ opened it up, with a near complete playing lcoop being created.

This album has been years in the making, but it is well worth exploring if you like any of the acts mentioned during the review.

One of the albums of the year for me.