The Arrow pays homage to the time-tested virtues of well-constructed songs built on a creative foundation of emotional honesty and musical eclecticism. “Usually the songs I write have some kind of spooky remembrance element in them,” Foster elaborates. “Something you can’t quite put your finger on. All the records I loved when I was young, whether it’s the Kinks’ ‘Waterloo Sunset’ or the Byrds’ ‘Chestnut Mare,’ had some element that gave you shivers and took you somewhere else.”   The album reflects a prismatic variety of alluring moods and colors, unspooling as a deep, episodic musical trip. They range from the explosive, Faces-like rush of “Life Is Sweet” to the mysterious mix of beauty and danger in “Morningside.” There’s rustic, Steve Forbert-style folk minstrelsy in “The Arrow” and a shimmering Byrds-meets-Fleetwood Mac glow to the utterly gorgeous “The Sun Will Shine Again.” “Young Tigers Disappear” erupts in a ferocious squall of guitars animating a poetic yet potent antiwar lyric. “Jigsaw Man” marries a soul-baring lyric to atmospheric dream-pop music that would do Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers proud.   “When I think about what kind of record this is,” Foster muses, “it almost seems like a random spin of an FM radio dial from a certain time in the past in the way it embraces a lot of styles without being too disparate or mixed up. So it’s skating over at least my musical history, though I wasn’t consciously thinking about it.”