Good Arrows

Don't let the seductively pleasant drift of the tunes fool you: this is sharp, dark stuff.

It's an album sufficiently laced with despair to render the not-committed listener uncomfortable; delve deeper, though, to where the darkness makes way for an eerie underworld glow, and the record's beauty emerges.

Here are very lovely songs, tempered by oblique though evocative lyrics; here are rustic landscapes juxtaposed with computer sounds and eccentric field samples; here is violence couched in the gentlest possible terms.

Good Arrows tempers its communal, folky feel with tasteful and restrained use of samples and loops, resulting in an inviting environment that feels soothing and organic.

Tunng has taken one analog-age lesson very much to heart by making Good Arrows nice and short; it's 11 songs clock in at 43 minutes, and only one is an outright dud. [Fall 2007, p.108]

An album that values discreet whimsy over Wicker Man portent, it succeeds on its own puckish terms. [Sep 2007, p.109]

Such is Tunng's appeal, the ability to do the unexpected but also to make you smile with their lyrical vignettes and musical slights of hand.

Unadulterated genius--we're practically drooling.

Clearly progressing from album to album, with Good Arrows Tunng has signalled the arrival of a fully conceptualised group sound.

Good Arrows is still a series of beautiful songs for that part of us all that just wants to stay in bed all day.

Dark as the rest of the album's subject matter, it wafts by like a delightful breeze. That's partly because the music is delicate and gentle, but it's mostly because Tunng can write the kind of melodies that get under your skin. They are still there long after the gloom has dispersed, making Good Arrows a dark pleasure, but a pleasure nonetheless.

They have taken on a wider range of styles and adapted them to their strict sound, but it still sounds like Tunng, which is never a bad thing.