Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9.5/10
A rare treat in life should be enjoyed as much as possible, it is something that should also be viewed as being perhaps as unique in your life, collection or something that you desperately want to share with the world at large. It can also be felt deep down, in the fiery pit of covertness and beautiful secrets that the soul demands you keep, is something that you know you only want your own ears to behold; even if it for the shortest while.
Such is the torment in which the soul must endure and ultimately do the right thing for with Ma Polaine’s Great Decline’s album Got Me Out Of Hell.
Ma Polaine’s Great Decline, otherwise known as Beth Packer and Clinton Hough, have thrust into the world, like some new wonderful step in evolution, an album of great warmth and heroic concealment as the era of Vaudeville comes rushing back into its vacated limelight and unites with the softness of a English country ballad. The fusion is on a par with the discovery that volcanoes don’t just tremble and quake, they erupt with force and the fall out is spectacular.
From the moment that the album starts with Blow Your Horn and the utterly awesome My Only Friend, Got Me Out Of Hell is impossible to refuse. Listening to it is like waking up from fitful sleep, finding inside a plain Manila envelope, a one way ticket to your dream destination, a new identity and a bundle of cash in which to spend for the rest of your life. You’re not going to ask to many questions on what you did to get the reward, for the reward is enough to live on for the remainder of your earthly time.
With other tracks making the album one of the most complete and uniquely enjoyable of the year so far, including the title track of the album, Dark Rum By Moonlight, Numb and The Devil’s Frying Pan, Got Me Out Of Hell shakes the far too comfortable up, dusts it down and then pours molten lava over it to cleanse all that went before. A scintillating new find and one to make sure the soul doesn’t covert for long before sharing.
Ian D. Hall