REVIEW: I Am Arrows - Sun Comes Up Again

Andy Burrows IS I Am Arrows. Andy Burrows WAS the drummer in Razorlight. Andy Burrows left Razorlight ‘for personal reasons.’ Rubbish, tabloid speculations and jokes about Johnny Borrell aside, we’re pretty sure those “personal reasons” were something very, very vaguely along the lines of, “I want to make my own album, where instead of only playing the drums, I get to decide exactly what I want to do and when I want to do it, plus I’ll sing and play every single instrument on the whole record.” Which is exactly what Andy has done. Yup. He plays every instrument on the record! When Chris Martin (Mr.Coldplay) heard his music he said something very, very vaguely along the lines of;

“Andy! Oh Andy! This is SO good! Don’t call yourself Andy Burrows, people will just say ‘you know Andy Burrows? No? Andy Burrows the drummer from Razorlight?’ It’s too good for that! You can’t just be Andy Burrows. You need a proper name! How about I Am Arrows?”

And right Chris Martin was. Far from the limitations of our expectations upon hearing ‘just that drummer from Razorlight,’ Sun Comes Up Again is fourteen tracks of shimmering rainbow pop. Swept with a beautiful gloss of sunshine production from Eliot James (Noah & The Whale, Bloc Party), the record is a primary coloured mosaic of seventies soul, harmonised vocal layers and twinkles held together by intricate percussion, electronic bleeps and honest, simple vocals from the man himself. Bursting with ideas, we find ourselves getting a little lost at moments throughout, however, with so much soul and honesty oozing from between the lines, this collection of perfectly rounded, often drowsy sun-lit pop songs has left us feeling like we’ve just spent a whole day laying on a picnic rug, staring into the sky and making shapes out of the clouds...