Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

There are few genres of music that polarise opinion more than Rock/Opera. Music lovers usually refer to the album Bat Out of Hell when they want to show how good it can be when the right combination of perfect voice and right songwriter/producer are beside them, for arguably the immense, silky voice of Meat Loaf has never been better when he had the deftness of music skill in Jim Steinman plugging away beside him, nor perhaps when that double act was complimented by the addition of the terrific Ellen Foley as female vocalist on some of the tracks.

There are of course those that will shy away from the genre altogether, perhaps it all feels too lengthy, too leading into the world of Progressive Rock for them to concentrate for the duration of an album which requires a story to be attached to it. It is the musical version of being offered War and Peace and settling for a weekly shopping magazine. No world is right or wrong, just some require more patience.

It certainly is unusual for a musician from Liverpool to dip their fingers into the genre but that is exactly what the superb Sofie Jude has done with her album My Elusive Heart and the result is exquisite, it is the bravura of War and Peace, the splendour of The Great Gatsby and the intrigue of Murder on the Orient Express all bound up together in some sort of hybrid musical page-turner.

The fascinating, almost remarkable, way she plays off her own voice, somehow able to take the diversity of unchecked masculinity and alluring femininity and blend them together to make something so unique is too her credit, the beauty of the ability never fading, never becoming an unwarranted intrusion on the stereo system, never becoming dull.

Listening to the songs on the album is like being on a train journey with both the Devil and a serenading angel with delicate demeanour, it is a long time to share a journey so why not take both the fun and joie de vivre of one and the casual exuberance of another let out to keep you from straying too far from a certain path and immerse yourself into a world of music that includes songs such as Her Fantasy Land, the creativity of Somehow One Day, the stunning realisation that comes with Same Old Love Song and the show piece extraordinaire of the album title track, My Elusive Heart. That journey will so much better for it.

Call it what you will, Rock Opera/ an extension of classical or another turn on the road that is Progressive Rock, however what you should call it is magnificent.         

Ian D. Hall