The Sound of Arrows - Voyage
- By Andrew Parker -
- Nov 08, 2011
The Sound of Arrows are an electro-pop duo (Oskar Gullstrand and Stefan Storm) from Sweden, who are taking the listener on a musical err… voyage through the electronic music of the 1980s on their debut album 'Voyage'.
Now, we all know the horrific crimes that were committed against music during this decade don’t we? Erasure, Yazoo, Heaven 17, ABC, Soft Cell etc were at the peak of their evil powers, polluting the air waves with a ridiculous new gadget called “the keyboard” that was even heralded as the new future of music by some hopelessly misguided (and possibly deranged) musicians…and hilarious fashion victims.
Thankfully this wacky music died out over time and was almost completely eradicated by the 1990s. Phew! Popular music was saved. But bizarrely another duo called La Roux miraculously popped up out of nowhere in 2009, with some crazy hair, and spearheaded a surprisingly decent electro pop epidemic throughout the United Kingdom. Bugger.
Alas, here are Sound of Arrows attempting to continue the work of La Roux’s Elly Jackson, Hurts, and 80s’ acts like the Pet Shop Boys (check out ‘My Shadow’) here on this debut. However, this album comes complete with a dreamy modern club vibe thrown in to remind us that we are now in the Gaddafi-free 21st Century.
‘Wonders’ is the kind of poppy dance music that you hear when on nights out (which you secretly quite like) when you are sulking at the side of the dance floor, while opener ‘Into The Clouds’ is nice and catchy - but is likely to annoy the hell out you on repeated listens! Seriously, it will. Again, ‘Magic’ is pleasing on the ear - almost like a friendly pop version of MGMT (with lovely kids on backing vocals) - but sadly, like every track on the album, is likely to zip through one ear and out the other without coming close to troubling your cultivated brains.
Voyage is rammed full of nice, safe, and dreamy/clubby 1980s-inspired electro pop songs. In conclusion, it is probably the aforementioned dreamy vibe that will be held accountable for when you snooze off around the mid-way point.
5/10
By Andrew Parker. Blogs at Electric Banana and tweets at @electricbananas
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