'Today i'm in the future, tomorrow I'll be in the past

Another one (surpise) that's come from the friends ist of Bat for Lashes. No more after today, promise. No really.
Today's is another who seems to confused it's genre with something it's not. Well actually thinking about it i can only think 'Metal' label they've given themselves is a joke. Just give a listen and see

THE GOLDEN SILVERS

Not metal in the list. At least not in the album 'Arrows of Eros' that i'll be reviewing today. Good name that, by the way. So if not metal, what kind of music are this band playing? Well to me right now it seems a bit of a mix of kind of Mystery Jets/Arctic Monkey/Libertines but thinly veiled with...old. Like all the tracks on this album kinda seem like thoy've ceom from the 60s or something. The music-hall piano and very english sounding lyrics are of a bit of a midfuck when you find yourself trying to reminisce about a time that these guys has certainly never been. 'Magic Touch' for instance sounds very Happy Days with it's chorus. The Beach Boys called - they want their ooohing choruses back.


I have to say though, they do the old thing very well, and mixing that nice classic piano with big bass lines and nice drum beats. The track 'Arrows of Eros' is a great song, i have to say. Fiddle with a few number on the keyboard and suddenly we've got this 80s kind of synth sound, mixed to some, i dunno, Duran Duran? There's also some drum machine in there too. Whatever the hell it is, it amounts to what is actually a really great title track. Something of note you guys might like to know - this band is guitarless. Surprising in a band that plays music like this, but hey if Keane can do it (which actually they can't. At all. And if i recall correctly Keane actually bought a guitar for the second album, so fuck them) these guys can too. With a keyboard and big fat bass lines. Which is really all you need in a band.
These guys also like their thickly textured climaxes which come of pretty well with big cymbals, and the build to it is nice to. The majority of songs (there's only 7 on this album. Very dissapointing i must say) start pretty slow and are a definate cue for linking arms with your mates after a few pints down the local and swaying (it's the ooooohs an aaaaaaahs again) and then end nice and big, without going mental.


It's rather surprising, when considering the massive steps music has taken in these last few years, that you've still got bands daring to produce that old sound that most of us seem to be trying to get away from. And i definately commend them for that, but it seems at times as if this attempt at a throwback to the oldies is a bit misguided. Fair enough if they're trying to span decades or eras, but you can't tell me 'Arrows of Eros' and 'Shakes' are from the same kind of time period. And then we've got 'Train for a brain' which, while a great track, sounds a bit like The Beatles if The Beatles were all robots. 
This all amounts to a pretty interesting album, if nothing else. These guys seem to me kind of like 'Tha Black Ghosts' from the other day - straddling genres every which way but never really managing a perfect dismount in any. (Do you like how i made a gymnastics metaphor? I do)