Arrow (Dig)

Clare and the Reasons | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (October 20, 2009)
• Original Release Date: 2009
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Frog Stand Records
• ASIN: B002N1AEOG
• In-Print Editions: Audio CD  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #195,411 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An instant classic, November 11, 2009

By 

Home away from home "Cindy" (Seattle) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Arrow (MP3 Download)

I appreciate groups who grow and evolve, that's why I think this album is a masterpiece. They took chances and they were right. The songs are catchy, easy to absorb, but there is a musical maturity that I never see. The arrangements, the playing, the writing, textures. You have to get this album, it's important, and you'll love it, like I do.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A BREATH OF FRESH MUSIC, April 23, 2010

By 

Music lover "Fan" (UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Arrow (Dig) (Audio CD)

This is incredible work! I love these songs, especially "our Team Is Grand" epic and revolutionary. This band is also amazng live, I finally got to see them, they are a REAL band!

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Arrow Hits a Bullseye, November 12, 2009

By 

Tanuki Shady (Dark Side of the Moon) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Arrow (Dig) (Audio CD)

There's a wonderful variety of lyrical and musical material here, mixing soft rock, pop, blues, cowboy songs, Beatles, Beachboys, even a moment of Ravel!. Clare Manchon writes subtle, witty, and often poignant songs featuring sweet melodies and interesting harmonic structures. Olivier Manchon's colorful arrangements include brass and winds along with his usual gorgeous string writing and playing. ( I can't believe they left the spotty string intonation on the cover version of Phil Collins' "That's All", though.) There's percussion, via Rich Stein, but no full-on drumset used anywhere, giving the ears a welcome break. Bassist/guitarist, Bob Hart is everywhere tastefully supportive, an ensemble of kazoos sound like bees in a song about bees, and Olivier makes extensive use of imitative counterpoint throughout--an art rarely found in popular music.

This is soothing but intelligent music, based on the pop music aesthetics of mainly the 1960s and 70s, with some old-time Americana circa 1920s and 30s. So soothing, I admit to recommending it to a friend whose cat died recently. But it's not the dull blythe "beautiful people" music that John Dworkin says it is in his hilariously ironic and scathing review of this CD on [...]:

"The Reasons' lyrics and sound (Clare's voice being occasionally charming but mainly cloyingly irritating) are eyeball deep in clever and cutesy... Will someone give the beautiful people a tour of Afghanistan please?"

While there's truth to Dworkin's observations on the surface, unless I've completely misunderstood Clare and the Reasons' raison d'etre, Arrow is an Existential and understanding trope on the frivolous lifestyle common to the cool and beautiful people, not an endorsement of it. There is also ample reference to fear, pain, and quiet desperation in Clare's lyrics to dispel the 'beautiful people' myth. "It's a joke, so let's laugh and look up at stars", sings Clare in the opening track, "All the Wine", apropos of nothing--or everything, as the case may be. As Edgar Allan Poe wrote in The Masque of the Red Death, "Even for the utterly lost, to whom life and death are equally jest, there are some things about which no jest can be made." Arrow is something like that...and Clare's voice is lovely.