Right from the first few bars, there is a real sense of familiarity with this record. I don’t know if it’s the Cave/Morrison like vocal style or the live natural sound achieved in the production. Whatever it is, I like it a lot.
The band are both technical and solid yet they have the emotional intelligence to sit back when the vocal line and lyric demand all of your attention. That’s quite some trick when recording live without any overdubs.
It’s not common to hear a record that manages to feel so human without being either overtly masculine or distinctly feminine but this record manages to feel totally equitable in this regard. For me it normally requires a band with the stature of The Magic Numbers to successfully and seemingly effortlessly pull this off.
Six quality track of sensible length is also soundly ticking my boxes and that firmly places this release squarely into the ‘listen to again’ pile.
I’m already looking forward to hearing the next offering from Mr Merz and friends.
