Album Review: Arrivals - 'Borrowed Time'

Sydney’s Arrivals seemed to have figured out something pretty important during the making of Borrowed Time: that in this industry at least, playing by no one’s rules but your own is often the best way to go about things. Borrowed Time is a playlist of the kind of music the boys in Arrivals thoroughly enjoy writing, as well as the songs you could find them blasting from their speakers and playing covers of on stage.

Listening to tracks like ‘Made it Back’ and ‘Seekers’, it’s immediately obvious that the band went into writing Borrowed Time with not only an appetite for an unforgettable chorus, but with the idea that they were going to be as experimental and at times, as cheesy as they very well pleased. Borrowed Time wasn’t built on big ideas, nor on any intentions to prove themselves worthy of the kind of fame they may one day have, but it is nonetheless a debut of the best kind - courageous, encouraging and sincere.

The record kicks of immediately with a heavy throttle from Arrivals’ guitars, a growl from the vocalist, and an accompanied unforgiving base line chug. This one might be short lived, but it serves its purpose recklessly, as a heads up that Borrowed Time is going to be a little heavy.

‘Driftwood’ and ‘Daydreaming’ are two sides of the same coin, the former sharing its influences with a gutsy amalgamation of styles, from metal to hardcore and pop punk gene pools, and the latter providing us with A Day To Remember style anthems for the average high-schooler or disgruntled 20 something with a love-hate relationship with the memories of his teenage years. Arrivals might make an unabashedly liberal use of ‘the breakdown’ and indulge without reservation, over and over again, in punchy chorus lines like, ’you won’t get the best of us,’ but they ‘re not apologising for any of this, and why should they?

Even at their cheesiest, (case in point: acoustic winner, ‘Made it Back,’) tracks like ‘For Beers’ and ‘Blood Moon’ deliver. If you’re looking to tick the fast and loud boxes, then look no further, because the second half of the record is relentless. While the clean vocals are weak in parts, the heavy vocals, which manifests in hardened, guttural screams, hefty shouts and other flavors of heavy, more than make up for them, transforming tracks like ‘Straight Up Hangs,’ and ‘It’s All About You,’ songs that could lack staying power, into something far more explosive. That being said, clean vocals or not, the lyrical integrity of Arrivals, and the conviction to which they subscribe, is never compromised.

For a debut, Borrowed Time is pretty gusty, and there’s no apologising happening here. Don’t expect Arrivals to be making the kind of music you want to hear, because chances are, they’re not going to be pleasing everyone. Borrowed Time is for the boys in the band, and for their friends. It’s for everyone they’ve ever played a show to, and for those kids who make it to every gig. If you, stranger on the internet, happen to dig Borrowed Time, then for Arrivals, that’s an added bonus.

1. Brainfreeze

2. Driftwood

3. Daydreaming

4. For Beers

5. Blood Moon (ft. Nicholas Wilkinson)

6. Straight Up Hangs

7. Seekers

8. It's All About You

9. Made It Back

10. Loyalties