The Arrows
The Lines are Open

The Arrows from Canada released two albums during their fairly short lived stint on the musical scene, none of them really took off and reached any higher plains. Both were moderate successes and the band disbanded after the second album which is this one. The first album was rereleased back in 2011 and I did review that, I liked it. So lets see what this album has to offer in comparison, a brass section and brilliant saxophone playing is just like on the debut, the singer is as good as well so it all looks good on the surface. Or rather it doesn’t because the cover art looks terrible, I think we need more archers shooting the arrows in that department.

It is the same kind of style, very eighties with keyboard driven AOR/melodic metal which can been seen as pretty tame by today’s standards. The sound is very clean and polished, the brass takes up a pretty big space in the musical landscape and overall it feels like hit based rock music with catchy choruses, very 1985. It kind of reminds me of countrymen Saga’s album Behavior which came around that time and also sounds very out of date just like this one. But out of date can be good, in those days music was recorded on a fairly big black disc shaped vinyl thing where a needle vibrated in grooves to make sounds trough the amplifier and speakers. In those days there was about 20 minutes on each side, you could squeeze in a bit more as well but the more minutes, the worse the quality which meant albums were a lot shorter then, this one is just over 40 minutes on nine tracks. That is a good playing time considering that the variation level and all of that keeps in interesting enough for that time.

The album itself is not as good as the debut in my opinion, it is more poppy and it has stood the test of time worse than the debut. It feels a bit old, more of a nostalgic trip than something you select because you want to listen to something great. It has some excellent track though like the opener and the ending track which I find quite brilliant, did I say that I think the saxophone and brass was great as well?

So, in the end I think that time has gotten the best out of this album and it feels more like something you listen to for nostalgic reasons. Maybe something to help with the trip down memory lane, it is good but it is not that amazing and in a way I think I see why these guys never really caught on in the grander scheme again. But if you like eighties rock music then you should at least have a look at this because it is still good. So, welcome to 1985.

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