Tim: Remember when we first encountered The Sound of Arrows, we had trouble pinning them down to a particular genre? Well, see if you can do any better with this. According to the PR e-mail, they’re “drawing music and cultural inspiration from their Swedish and British roots” and the song “infuses a melancholic and extroverted sound with references to bands ranging from Arcade Fire to Roxette,” so see what you think.
Tom: I was all ready to start complaining about PR rubbish and how that was just a series of vague sentences… and then I heard the intro.
Tim: At which, presumably, you just sat back and enjoyed it.
He’s a Brit called Charlie who does the producing; she’s a Dane called Maja who does the singing, and I think they’re both very good at their jobs.
Tom: Agreed. There’s something special about this track: the way the piano’s never hidden despite the massive amount of instruments, percussion and production; the sheer energy that goes into it all.
Tim: I say I’m not sure how to describe it, and I’m not, largely because it’s got bits of everything from, well, from Roxette to Arcade Fire in it. But I don’t mind – a bit of a mish-mash it may be, but it’s a good one with a good sense of cohesion to it that just works.
Tom: The lyrics are odd, to say the least – there’s something about swallowing basketballs in there, I think, but as long as I don’t pay too much attention to them the track seems pretty much amazing.
Tim: Also from the lyrics: “Is this the meltdown of our golden days?” we’re asked, and I’m compelled to answer that I really hope not, because this is great.