Friends [Complete Recordings 1970-1971]

Audio Remasterer: Simon Murphy .
Liner Note Author: Austin Powell.
London soft rock band Arrival was only around for a few years at the end of the '60s into the early '70s, but they were incredibly active during their brief run. The band released two self-titled albums (one on Decca in 1970, another on CBS in 1972), made several television appearances, scored two U.K. chart hits, and impressed Dusty Springfield enough that she wrote a blurb of excitement for the band on the back sleeve of their debut record. Friends: Complete Recordings 1970-1971 collects all known recordings from Arrival's short lifespan, including both studio albums, several bonus tracks from the time of each record, and a full disc's worth of previously unreleased BBC sessions. The group's two biggest songs, "Friends" and "I Will Survive," offer a good overview of their sound: bright and mellow pop tunes with a focus on tight vocal harmonies and sweetly understated string arrangements. Arrival had five vocalists trading lead duties and sometimes all harmonizing with each other, adding an undercurrent of Hair or Jesus Christ Superstar-styled musical theater to their good-natured melodies. The dramatic crescendo on "I Will Survive" brings to mind a far more theatrical Free Design, and even when approaching a hushed ballad like Leonard Cohen's "Hey, That's No Way to Say Goodbye" Arrival can't resist switching up the arrangement to include full-chested group vocals. There are hints of the prog and West Coast psychedelia inherent to the era on the stony shuffle of "Sit Down and Float" or the band's especially baroque rendition of the Doors' "Light My Fire," complete with an all-flute intro. The band experimented with different styles on their 1972 album, with pedal steel and country-rock inflections on "Have a Drink on Your Father" and overdriven blue-eyed soul on "Not Gonna Worry," among other dabblings in gospel and folk balladry. The inclusion of unreleased BBC sessions highlights Arrival's abilities outside of the studio, with the harmonies sounding even sharper in a live setting on passionate versions of "Family Tree," "World of Darkness," signature song "Friends," and many others. Arrival was here and gone in the blink of an eye, but this collection showcases how wide-ranging and quickly evolving their talent was in that brief window. Working with major labels and recording in world-class studios with significant budgets, Arrival still existed very much under the radar when compared to even slightly more famous bands of their ilk. It's a perfect reminder of how many incredible bands were making solid, psychedelically tinged pop music in the '70s on a global stage, and how much more there is to discover from that incredibly fruitful time. ~ Fred Thomas