Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

St. Andrew’s Day falls with the appearance of a widow placing her mourning garments around her as she prepares to bury her late and possibly foolish husband. Unlike the party atmosphere that surrounds St. Patrick’s Day or the feel of stirring independence in the Welsh national day or even the somewhat mixed feeling that surrounds the flag of St. George, passionate, inspiring and rousing in the right hands, a force for undisguised hatred, intolerance and shame in others, the Saltire anywhere outside its natural borders, seems to usher in the thoughts of the cold blast of air that comes with the dying days of the year that December holds fast to its bosom.

For Palm Sugar and Little Atoms though the warmth that exudes throughout the couple of hours that a Sunday evening can bring is enough to keep the cold firmly at bay. The music generated by the three musicians is more than a match for the bellowing hiss that comes down over the Faroe Islands, through the tidy and much loved streets of Inverness and the passionate grounds of fertile independence of Glasgow and which is repelled at the last moment as it reaches the doors of Palm Sugar.

For Caroline England, Vanessa Murray and Sam Westhead, the latest three musicians to perform on a Sunday evening whilst an audience sits wrapped in the throes of moving music and the diners eating in Chaophraya crane their necks and crack the muscles between deciding to take in their menu and therefore avert the cursing eyes of the one they are meant to be with or just going hell for leather and taking in the music on offer. Looking up at times at the diners, the music seems to win out more often than not.

With two musicians so well known to the Liverpool audiences in full throttle and Sam Westhead making a wonderful appearance, the evening swam past so quickly that there was no time to wish the last few hours of November a hearty thanks and curse it for allowing its natural follower the time to take off its coat and make itself comfortable by hogging all the fire.

With tracks such as the superb Stand By Me, Someone Like You and the delightful That Place, a wonderful piece of original music by Caroline England being performed alongside Sam Westhead playing Bob Dylan’s Don’t Think Twice, Black and Gold, a tremendous slowed down version of the Paul Simon Classic You Can Call Me Al and his own song I should Know and the highly enjoyable and charming Vanessa Murray playing songs such as Fire That Burns Within, My Girl, a knock-out version of Abba’s Mamma Mia and the haunting Thanks To You, the spectre of the December march towards the finality of 2014, was in spirit at least postponed for the talent on show.

There is nothing better than finding a welcome in a venue; it is a welcome that Little Atoms’ Live Lounge provides so well.

Ian D. Hall