LOVE OVER FEAR

I had given this album a good many listens before I saw it performed in its entirety at Trading Boundaries which just prompted me to listen even more obsessively to it. I shall keep returning to it because it is such a fine album. Given that Trading Boundaries was the first gig in a long tour, the band was in really fine form.

The album opens with Everything, a great stomping opener for a gig, and then calms down dramatically with a beautiful ballad, Starfish And The Moon. Truth And Lies opens with an edgier feel and, as one of the longer tracks, is an opportunity for Nick Barrett to develop a lovely guitar solo. 360 Degrees opens with a folk rock sound before developing into another stomper. The lyrics were a bit of a mystery to me when I first heard, "everything is green, everything is blue, everything you see, 360 degrees". In introducing the song, Nick explained that he had moved to Cornwall and the song is inspired by the green fields and blue skies which appear to be everywhere you look. Soul And The Sea develops slowly until the half-way point when it builds to a crescendo before concluding in the manner that it opened.

For me, the sixth track, Eternal Light, is the best track on the album. As another of the longer tracks there is a lot of scope for development and change which it does from early in the track. Before you reach the half way point you can feel the energy building in Barrett's vocal and the track calms again just after the halfway point with another short piano solo. The track builds again for the dramatic climax and another glorious (all too short) guitar solo. Wonderful track.

Water is another lovely ballad with fine guitar solo and is followed by another edgier track, Whirlwind with its gentle piano opener which develops into another fine ballad. Who Really Are We? Is the longest track (just) at nearly nine minutes. This track includes the title of the album in the lyrics and, given the Love Over Fear subject matter has an edgy sound to the melody and the vocal.

The album concludes with another fine ballad, Afraid Of Everything. The vocal covers the first half of the track and the second half starts with a gentle guitar solo that develops into a lovely instrumental with the whole band playing out the melodic theme. For me. this is, by some distance, the best album of the year so far this year and deserves a five star rating.