Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

It is always heartening when you hear a band or artist bemoan the way that television and certain people making money from it has come to define music to a certain percentage of the population, so much so that you want to grab the musicians by the hand, shake it with vigour and a smile on your face and wish them all the luck in the world as they take on the televised corporation.

For Steve Thompson & The Incidents their three song E.P., already worth so much in the hearts of the fans who have made their way to watching them live, this wonderful dig at one of the main people involved in the business of packaging music into the format of a television game show raises their game even further. The song itself, Tell Cowell We’re Coming To Get Ya, sounds as good in the digital era as it does as they perform it live, full of meaty abundance, lyrics that you cannot but help grin at with the kind of reverence that Liverpool audiences normally reserve for one of the great Ian McNabb or Ian Prowse tracks and all tied up in a well delivered bundle with the subtle message, support local music, get out of the television comfort zone and actually watch a young band.

For Steve Thompson, Phil Bernia and Phil Oakes, the three tracks suggest that the way they have been performing has been taken note of and now the chance to bring it to an even bigger audience is tantalising. Whatever the song, the aforementioned track, the very cool Love In The City or the compelling Rainbows, the rawness of youthful anger wrapped in a Liverpool heart is more than enough to count the days down till you are able to catch them live again.

There will always be those whose musical taste is dictated to by television and for that it is not anyone’s place to tell them otherwise but when you have such an outpouring of good musicians, of which Steve Thompson & The Incidents gladly sit, in one city all showing that the greater good is served by at least listening to something real, then surely the direction of televised music can be revered completely.

Ian D. Hall