First things first: by a large margin, this is the best pop album of the year. I don’t usually sum up my reviews so early into writing them, but I thought it’d be better for me to make that perfectly clear as soon as I could. I’ve lost count of the amount of times the words ‘electro-pop’ and ‘Swedish’ have appeared in the same sentence in a new music feature this year, but Voyage destroys all the competition. None of their compatriots are doing their electro-pop thing nearly as well as The Sound of Arrows (facebook/twitter).

What makes Voyage immediately stand out from the crowd is that it is not the clichéd ‘thrown-together’ debut album. This record is a complete, flowing piece of work, displaying both the widescreen qualities of film music and hard-hitting lyrical themes. This album is literally an escapist pop record, detailing, as it does, the journey of two people who decide to run away from the lives they have and recreate themselves.

I feel like I should mention that this album has resonated strongly with me on a personal level, but I’m going to get away from that for a moment and say that these eleven songs work just as well as separate entities. There is a narrative thread running through the record, but that’s also reflected in how Voyage is structured. The motif that acts as a prelude to Into the Clouds resurfaces in Lost City, and Magic and The Longest Ever Dream are, lyrically speaking, two sides of the same coin.

Without a doubt, this is the single most euphoric album I’ve heard this year. It’s managed to earn a place in my heart for a number of reasons, not the least of which being that it displays songcraft that other groups of this ilk would kill for; even Conquest, which I think is the weakest (relatively speaking) song on the album, is still a cut above its competitors. With songs like the dazzling Wonders, the spine-tinglingly epic There Is Still Hope, and Nova, which can accurately be described as ‘absolutely massive’, The Sound of Arrows set themselves exceptionally high standards that they did an extremely good job of maintaining.

Broadly speaking, this is all killer and no filler. This Stockholm-based duo have put a startling amount of thought and effort into their debut, and while their borderline-relentless positivity will not be everyone (the light contained in the melodies is brought into contrast by a degree of darkness in the lyrics), I dare say that if you can’t get some sort of enjoyment out of an album as life-affirming as this, you’re a curmudgeon. At the very least, it’ll make you feel something, and albums that provoke and emotive response from the listener are to be cherished, especially when they are as downright amazing as this one.

Voyage was released on November 7th through Skies Above

[BUY] The Sound Of Arrows – Voyage @ Amazon | Piccadilly | iTunes

The Sound Of Arrows – Wonders
Brightside (The Sound of Arrows Remix) by The Knocks

PopJustice have got the full album stream.