‘Alone Together’ is the new album from the Swiss band Archers and Arrows, what can only be described as an album that contains quite a few elements. With rough style punk vocals mixed with the melodic guitar tones of an indie band and some catchy pop lyrics, it is a hard album to categorize into one genre.
As the repetitive guitar note comes in on ‘Innocence’ it turns into a melodic lead, as the sung vocals turn into rough angsty vocals. The guitars have a soft melodic feel to them and go along and kind of juxtapose the rough screamed vocals at times, it’s a nice sounding tone. ‘Numb/Dumb’ is just a single bassline for over a minute and then the guitar and roughly screamed vocals come in to make the sound really power through. By far one of the album’s best tracks is ‘My Own God’ which starts with some Circa Survive sounding melodic lead guitar work. The same lead guitar sound runs throughout the song and the vocals are a lot more sung and not screamed, and adds a more chilled out sound to the album.
The album also has some more up-beat and faster tempo songs, ‘Sing to the Wind’, ‘Alone Together’ and ‘Self-Made Man’ have a rockier edge as the drums cut through the melodic rock sounding guitars a lot more. ‘Dans Macabre’ brings back the intricate and melodic lead guitar at the start and quickly brings in some really catchy lyrics, a definite good feel song. A song which has a nice guitar build up is ‘Dirty Hands’ as the skills of both guitarists are shown off. Some memorable breakdown guitars come in and go out into some melodic lead guitar work which is really catchy.
<a href=“http://archersandarrows.bandcamp.com/album/alone-together” data-mce-href=“http://archersandarrows.bandcamp.com/album/alone-together”>Alone Together by Archers and Arrows</a>
The last two songs on the album ‘Sing and Play’ and ‘Emergency’ couldn’t be more polar opposite in sound. The first is a more rock sounding song with some heavy lead guitar riffs it sounds like the most mainstream single type of songs and shows off the radio potential this album has. The second of the two songs mentioned above is a more sombre and slow lead guitar affair as the simple and slow drum and guitar rhythms come in, it finishes off with the help of some sweetly sung female vocals.
Like I said at the start it’s a hard album to give a specific genre tag too. Some people would argue that it is not punk enough but is more indie, yet some people would say it’s more indie style pop. All I know is that it is a great good summer time feel album that you can have on in the background while you work or listen to when relaxing. The obvious downside to this is that there is no distinction between songs as the whole album could be mistaken as one epic long song. With more chances taken on new sounds, and to add more instruments, it would be a really great album but instead it’s a good album.
3/5
‘Alone Together’ by Archers and Arrows is available now through Inhumano/Sirkelpit/ Bad Mood/Sums.
Archers and Arrows links: Facebook|Tumblr|Bandcamp
Words by Aaron Wilson (@soundslikeajw)
