I Thank God For This Moment – Annemarie Picerno feat. Matt Barfield (reviewed by Dave Franklin)

As separate, solo artists, Annemarie Picerno and Matt Barfield have made some quite outstanding music in their own right. You could only imagine what they could produce if they worked together! Well, imagine no longer as the two have poured their taste and talent into a wonderful duet, and it is pretty awesome.

I Thank God For This Moment is a country song with a gospel makeover, or perhaps vice versa. All that matters is that they take everything that makes both those genres cool, throw in a handful of sassy blues vibes and a slightly funky, wandering bassline and come out the other side with a gorgeous song.

And, as great as the music is, it is the two voices that dominate. Both have an impressive set of lungs on them, their individual deliveries certainly make you stop in your tracks but when they harmonise on the choruses it reaches something altogether otherworldly. If there was a choir of angels that specialised in bluesy harmonies and gospel gorgeousness, then Annemarie Picerno and Matt Barfield would be their leading lights. The Seraphim of sass? The vocal Virtues? The Archangels of acoustic awesomeness? (Isn’t alliteration fun?)

In short, this is too much talent to be occupying the same song, it doesn’t give the competition much of a chance, does it? What it does do is set a new benchmark for others to aim for and all I can say for those that try to reach it is – okay, good luck with that, which you have to imagine me saying in the most sarcastic of voices…the written word does have its limits when trying to convey such sentiments.