Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Time has arguably finally seen sense and allowed Deacon Blue the standing that was taken away after runaway success in the 1980s and 90s. For if the last release that the band bought out, the very cool The Hipsters, was a sign of intent, then A New Home is something in which to be proud of, not just for the listener soaking up the graphic-like story-telling and soon to be popular songs that will be broadcast and played live for their loyal audiences, but for the band also, for A New Home is something in where fresh and exciting adventures begin and exploration is pre-requisite.
Released just a couple of weeks before the 2014 Scottish Referendum, A New Home also feels like a call to the faithful to discover what it at stake, that the home is theirs for the taking, theirs to utilise and be proud of. It may have the thin veil of deniability attached to it but in a band so very proud of their Glasgow roots, the thin veil disguises a Scottish smile in which to grasp hold of.
The album also happens to be terrific, a pop dream in which the rememberance of the band’s early album comes flooding back into view, the overwhelming memory of the first time you may have heard Dignity, the acceptance in your heart when you said yes with a flourish of youth to the catch Chocolate Girl, of when Wages Day and Real Gone Kid were an anthem in which the weekend was a way of life and not something to plan.
The ever suave piano and brutally honest acoustic guitar of Ricky Ross, the temptation in the voice of the outstanding Lorraine McIntosh, the haunting keyboards entwined within of James Prime and Dougie Vipond’s wonderfully timekeeping on drums are added to by Gregor Philip, Lewis Gordon and the sublime strings of the Cairn String Quartet and given the power to enthuse in tracks such as For John Muir, An Ocean, Our New Land, the heart breaking beauty of I Remember Every Single Kiss and the outstanding and musically riveting I Wish I Was A Girl Like You, which has to go down as arguably the group’s finest track for 20 years
A New Home needs to be enjoyed, it needs to be treated with respect and above all it has to remind you of where you have come from, the difference you have made, and can continue to make, in your life as independence flourishes. A New Home is enough to make you feel sophisticated and eerily like a teenager once more.
Ian D. Hall