Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

For a musician who creates the most beautiful sounding compositions with KingBathmat, the chance to really let go and release an album of his own work must have always been nagging at the back of his head and now John Bassett has the chance to impress completely with his debut album Unearth.

Impressed might be too strong a word to bandy around, it gives rise to the thought of confetti being thrown at a wedding or celebration or the first sight of fireworks that cling to the midnight sky high above Sydney as the clocks click over into a new year, perhaps captivated and enthralled would be better, for that is the feeling you get when listening to Unearth for the first and subsequent times.

To show yourself in this way, to disclose innermost thoughts without the safety net of a much loved band behind you is to uncover new thoughts and old forgotten memories and the opulent and flourishing tracks that hug John Bassett’s album showcase this feeling of musical contentment and listener gratification. Serenity of this magnitude is usually to be found in the annals of that other Progressive Rock King Steve Hackett’s body of work and John Bassett captures that free-flowing mood with an aura of vitality.

Unearth centres around 10 great tracks, each as intertwined to each other as an audience is to a performer, the darkness of life coupled with the inner light that carries us through, sometimes unwillingly, to the next day and in which to breathe new dawn air.

Tracks such as Stay Away From The Dark, the excellent Pantomime, the chilling exhumed thoughts of T.V. is God and Something That’s More Worthwhile fill the room with the grace of lady enjoying afternoon tea or of a child running round the playground and finding everything that’s great in the world and knowing that is endlessly fascinating.

Whilst fans will not want KingBathmat to slowly disappear, as can be the case when somebody wants to start recording some of their own songs, there surely is far too much left for the band to comment upon for them to allow it happen, to hear John Bassett’s solo album is a pure delight, a real trip into the subconscious tranquillity that sits waiting patiently within us all.

Ian D. Hall