John Brandon - Arrival

Hear The Track Here

The bells inside long time Soundclick veterans heads are probably ringing overtime with this artists name. Yes, to put you out of your misery, you do indeed know this guy. More especially if you were around in Soundclick's dreamtime of 2003-2005. In 2003 a band called Silvertrain ruled this particular roost, the whole world and his brother liked the band and they looked set for big things - even went so far as to almost score an American record deal. To a great many older forum members, Silvertrain were a band that delivered solid rock based pop with a drive and energy it was hard to find anywhere else. Since The One To Blame CD, however, the band have struggled mightily just to get together, let alone get down to making any meaningful music. John Brandon being, of course, one half of Silvertrain. In fact, for a while there, I was reviewing purely John's songs anyway so it's nice to see him finally stepping out as his own songwriter.

Now just wait a minute while I sharpen me knives....

Musically, Arrival is about as far away from Silvertrain as you can get, unless you took a boat(?) It's a melodic slice of pretty much pure electronica and yes you will have heard its like before. As John said of his long absence 'I got bored and didn't really want to bash out loads more tunes that I wasn't happy with' so he went away and worked with Fruity Loops for a while and Arrival is the result of all that work. Well, the good thing is that at least it didn't have me climbing the walls screaming for it to stop and that's always a good start for me.

Certainly its a HUGE surprise for a piece of music like this to come from John Brandon, someone I will always associate with guitars, vocals and harmony vocals and feelgood pop music. John has also managed to avoid one of the major pitfalls of Fruity too by cutting down on the amount of pluck sounds; too often a feature of first time users compositions. Although a plucked sequence leads the proceedings there is nothing in the track that sets my teeth on edge and that is also rare in work like this. Moreover, Arrival is very nicely melodic, in fact a very decent listen if you like clean, clear electronica.

Highly Recommended melodic Electronica.