Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10
Music truly is about opening yourself up, like all art it responds to how you feel on the day, what mood you have climbed out of bed in and how that period of darkness has affected you and your thoughts. For Simon Cousins, once of the Wiltshire Folk rock band Ophiuchus and Liverpool’s own The Onset, the mood he must have come to be in whilst recording the tracks on Given Songs must have been somewhere between serene and tranquil with a little nomadic aside into the realms of tender affection.
Whilst the majority of the compositions that frame Given Songs are of the nature of love that doesn’t mean Mr. Cousin’s has travelled down the road normally inhabited by the likes of Lionel Ritchie, for the tracks are of a type of British love, wonderfully slightly reserved, full of passion but also willing to pull back and not declare the true feelings of a man in the open. They are more the measured whispers from one human being to another, the softly spoken breathe in which keeps the lover safe from harm knowing that the intentions and intimations are pure and uncontaminated by 21st century excess.
Throughout Given Songs, what comes across is of a man perhaps at peace with himself for the first time in a long time. The sudden release of all that has been knocking at the door and threatening to kick just once too often, removed and dealt with by people who care. It certainly has allowed Simon the chance to bequeath his music to the outside world without fear and what he has released is enjoyable, a presentation of thoughts and words to share and communicate with, it is decent and musically pleasant. The music equivalent of being given a day off from work for no reason at all and finding sunshine guiding your path to your favourite armchair, for everybody deserves that one place at some point to unravel and declare their love.
With an attractive opener in Country Girl, Given Songs offers an arm in which to close in upon, to take and relish the walk that is offered. Other tracks continue the pace and give the music its natural saunter. Tracks such as My Guitar and Me, the wonderful The Fact I Love You Now, Loved You When We Met and When You Don’t Ask all give a meaning to being able to hold onto something, anything and give it 100 percent attention for a while.
An album of note, of cool and calmness in a world that is too easily at times swayed by the beat of a faster drum.
Simon Cousins will be formally releasing Given Songs at the Langdale Charity Folk Festival on May 9th.
Ian D. Hall