Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
There are moments that stick in the mind more clearly than others, the instant when you witness something so extraordinary, when you hear something so surprisingly exceptional that not only do the hairs on the back stand up on the back of the neck, they wave remarkably in the strong gust of future expectation and are strong enough to withstand the wear and tear of a flag being run up and down them for a dozen years.
To catch Elijah James live is one thing, the goose pimples on the skin raise a white flag of surrender when you do so, but to hear his debut album, Nobody Important, is allow those goose pimples a free roaming pass to spread everywhere. The sound of a voice so remarkable and with a collection of musicians who somehow add to something that is so special it never devalues in appreciation, that not only do you weep with joy at the melancholic delivery but you cannot help but grasp the importance of the lyrics which resonate round the air, bouncing off heart strings, playing with emotions perhaps long since buried until each song nestles into the conscious and that whispering in stuttered tongues is as much as you can do.
With excellent musical contributions from the likes of Ed Poole, Samiran Culbert, the wonderfully talented Stephanie E. Kearley, Rachel Wharton and Shannen Bamford, songs such as Nighttime, the intensity of A Perfect Death, the overwhelming destruction in My Empire, Do Something, the sheer exquisiteness of Reflections of Me and Everything Disappeared (Not Really), Nobody Important is something so monumental, something so well produced that it defies belief that this is the young musician’s debut album.
The shudder, the tremor of belief that sits at the heart of every song quakes with excitement at the beginning of the very first note and rumbles with bitter sadness at the prospect of finality. It winces as the well offers its last drop of energy to a cause in which you have supped with delight but assuredly offers the chance to dwell within something so beautiful that detractors and cynics will have no place to share their darkness.
Debut albums are not an indication of future greatness but this is no time for talk of the future, not when the present is looking and sounding so good. Elijah James has produced something so beautiful that it passionately hurts; a true and honest ache of humanity. Tremendous stuff!
Ian D. Hall