The Three O'Clock's first major label album, after the superb Sixteen Tambourines and Baroque Hoedown, is a bit slicker and less specifically psychedelic than their earlier releases. Recorded in Berlin with British producer Mike Hedges, Arrive Without Travelling (the title, complete with U.K. spelling, comes from George Harrison's "The Inner Light") has a big, brash sound, from the blaring opener "Her Head's Revolving" to the multiply overdubbed choral vocals and hypnotic drum patterns of the droning closer "Spun Gold." The arrangements are slick, but they don't have the sterile, computerized feel of many mid-'80s pop records; Mike Mariano's keyboards are at the center of the sound, but Louis Gutierrez's guitar is prominent enough to recall the group's '60s roots. As always, Michael Quercio's inimitable voice and puckish lyrics are the album's love it or hate it factor, but song by song, this album probably features his strongest songwriting. "Her Head's Revolving" is a lost classic of a single, arguably the band's finest three minutes, and the gloriously hooky "Underwater" is nearly as good. "Mrs. Green," which shifts from a church organ-based verse to a swooning chorus, and the tenderly acoustic "The Girl With the Guitar (Says Oh Yeah)," co-written by Game Theory's Scott Miller, vary the otherwise power-poppy album. Later albums would continue Arrive Without Travelling's move away from the band's early paisley underground days with less impressive results, but this album rivals Sixteen Tambourines as the Three O'Clock's artistic peak.
© Stewart Mason /TiVo