The Sound Of Arrows
Voyage

Is it possible to catch the scent of a good synth-dance album, vaguely retro, a bit playful and easy-going, in an era where the imitation of the '80s is now an overused cliché punishable by death? Answers to this question could rain down by the hundreds, perhaps in torrents and violent hailstorms of pop and pseudo-pop works, nonetheless, the unconventional response from the indie-underground archive would not be immediate nor predictable: far from charts, hits, playlists, podcasts, and media bandwagons, the juicy creativity of the unjust underbelly emerges, perhaps the only heirs of authenticity and genuineness from the so-called "long ago," even without the financial help of major labels and the related promotional and distribution support.

Once again, the indie electronic binoculars are focused on Scandinavia, more precisely towards the regal Sweden of the Nobel Prizes. The Sound Of Arrows is a duo of DJ-remixers - Stefan Storm and Oskar Gullstrand - who can already boast a respectable resume of remixes and reinterpretations of mainstream tracks for established dance-pop artists and bands. Their debut came in 2008 with the decent extended play Danger!, followed by M.A.G.I.C. the following year, leading to their definitive and official debut with "Voyage" in 2011. At the perfect crossroads of semi-experimental and semi-avant-garde electronics similar to Royksopp and the challenging legacy of eighties dance-pop akin to Pet Shop Boys, the album represents a very pleasing dive into the past that unfolds without excesses or smudges towards the synth of the future. "Voyage" is not the umpteenth mess typical of our days, the umpteenth, sterile, superficial and repetitive club hodgepodge, but a little retro-revival gem suitable for both the nostalgics of the Glorious Decade and the escapees from the sound harassment of the current era.

Numerous are the peaks conquered and proposed by "Voyage", especially the complete euro-synthpop link of the single Wonders and Magic, a track that - perhaps - could rise to one of the best musical reincarnations of the Eighties. Also precious are Into The Clouds, a robotic mix between disco music and electrodance, the successful legacy of Pet Shop Boys in Nova and in the melancholic My Shadow, the long composition (mostly instrumental) of There Is Still Hope, the revival magnificence of Ruins Of Rome and the almost spiritual "avant-gardism" of Hurting All The Ways.

The best of ten intense years magnificently extracted and properly packaged into a particularly rich and intense tribute album: "Voyage" is a new serene little chapter to add to the incomplete volume of well-crafted products, synonymous with an immortal fashion that, despite the barbarism of extravagance and the most heinous abuses, still manages, in the second decade of the 2000s, to paint the freshness and legend of an era that does not require stories, glitter, studs or time machines to be savored in its most pleasant fragrances.

The Sound Of Arrows, "Voyage"

Into The Clouds - Wonders - My Shadow - Magic - Ruins Of Rome - Longest Ever - Dream - Hurting All The Way - Conquest - Nova - There Is Still Hope - Lost City - Disappear - Dark Sun