Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
It is easy to miss the greatness of an album, the glowing and fitting tributes that came its way. No matter how hard you try you cannot physically hear every single album released in your life time and beyond, the small matter of occasionally sleeping is a big hindrance in the pursuit of hearing great music, let alone the 8-12 hours a day that are spent working. By picking and choosing what you listen too, you miss out on a nugget, a mind-blowing sliver of gold that others have heard but because you were sleeping you missed. It can be seen as somewhat inexcusable but you do have to sleep sometime.
One band that wasn’t nodding off or day dreaming in the last year was The Midnight Ramble as they released out their outstanding Sink the Pieces. The fusion of brass, Blues and balls sets the heart afire and the musical muscle floating in harmony and enjoyment. The combination of Rory Ballantyne’s trumpet, Nick Branton’s saxophone, which is as pleasurable and entertaining as anything laid down on any Billy Joel album, Mike McLeod’s guitars, Chris Pearce’s bass, James Hackett’s perfect timekeeping and focus on drums and the fabulous vocals of Paul Dunbar make this an album of extraordinary sensational depth.
One of the great things about the album is the assuredness, brevity and conviction that Paul Dunbar places into his lyrics, a poet’s heart with the vocals of a man inspired who also has more than a touch of the great Joe Cocker in his youth about him. Alongside the likes of Alan O’Hare of Only Child, Jo Bywater and Robert Vincent, Joe Symes and countless others who feed off the rhyme of life in the city, the lyrics he utilises and pieces together are scintillating and thought provoking.
The Midnight Ramble’s Sink the Pieces is a tremendous example of an album that delivers exactly what the listener hopes it will as they crack open the jewel case for the first time. Dynamic, sincere in its delivery and outlook and all the time never letting the listener forget that their music is so damned good that it radiates positivity, even during the bleakest of lyrics. Outrageously fantastic!
Ian D. Hall