Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
There are combinations that are just made to make the heart swing that little faster, the amalgamation of seemingly different flavours that somehow go together and produce a slice of unexpected and much admired bliss.
The album may steadfastly proclaim that it’s A Long Way From Heaven, however just an hour in the company of Wily Bo Walker and Karena K and the highly original songs that come across the innocent sounding space between speaker and ear is soon filled with the sweet resonance of angel siding up to a Blues/Jazz combo and uttering the immortal words, “Turn up the heat baby, you’re on fire!”
This highlighted work of Walker and Karena K may seem like a small token to appease the music lover, however sometimes what seems like the barest offerings hold a multitude of beauty, the intriguing wonder of what else is to come if you go and search for it. Not a best of album, more like a scratch the surface and breathe deeply, for the rest is yet to come.
If this six track album is A Long From Heaven, then perfection must be unobtainable. Throughout the album it is possible to feel yourself floating gently as a man in a smoking white tuxedo and a hot blowing trumpet reels you in, the area around 77th Street in New York bustling with the sound of expectation and a dream like quality that serenades you in the form of a devil in a flowing green dress and the smell of Cuban cigars infiltrating your senses. It may not be Heaven but there is no doubt on how heavenly it sounds.
The six tracks, Long Way To Heaven, Love Will Find A Way, Angels in The Night, the utterly superb Did I Forget (To Tell You I Love You), Rendezvous Des Cheminots and the stunning closer of Light at the End of the Tunnel tangle with the art and craft of well presented set of songs and the sight of that green dress shimmering in the moonlight of a New York night; the Devil sated and happy to have helped you dance.
A Long From Heaven can only lead you to become a gumshoe, the private eye in search of their next recorded clue; it doesn’t matter how long it takes, that clue will be found and prized.
Ian D. Hall