Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
If the album title and cover from the Master Thieves’ latest offering is meant to be radical and hark back to an age where the utopian future and scary brutal smell of dystopian realism can be seen hand in hand, then News From Nowhere not only succeeds, it positively smiles at its own industry and clever analogy. It is the type of presentation, both on the outside and more importantly on the C.D. that the listener cannot help but be intrigued by and place quite high on the to do list.
The ten songs that make up News From Nowhere also have the distinction of feeling relevant, as they themselves play, to what has become a lost generation. A generation fed on lies and false expectation, a generation that has been shown this glittering gold chest, stuffed with absurd promises and the tarnished break down of a society at war with itself and with its anger vented at the wrong targets.
Widnes, to many, may not have a lot going for it, it perhaps arguably is seen as the small town that nestles beside the Mersey River and is more famous for the jokes made about the toxic smell that pollutes the senses and can be seen at times to leave an eerie glow in the night sky. It is a town, a place that the utopian desire would see the first uprising and who better to oversee that first shot was fired, not in anger but with social realistic intent that Master Thieves.
With songs such as (Steal Your) Dreams, the tremendously catchy Rebel From The Waist Down, Lost Generation, the evocative nature of Night Bus and the introspection of the forgotten way of life in Memory Lane, Master Thieves offer ten tales of succulent 21st Century realism, of showing just happens in the everyday lives of those who are in danger of being left behind. Everybody has a story, a chronicle of their lives in which anecdotes are spread too thin and the gossip mongers take control, with the Master Thieves at the helm of the narration, Widnes and its people at least have respect given to them, the social stories, some based in intolerance, some in the sublime nature that only Humanity can offer, is at least cared for and given a voice.
A truly enjoyable album, one that offers news from somewhere real!
Ian D. Hall