Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

There is something very cool, something very loveable that sits within the framework of Crowning Sky and for a band that stood out for being the only one not coveting the moody and brooding on a hot July evening. This tangibility of heartening spirit, that welcoming approach that sat with the brilliance on offer by the other three sets of artists at Zanzibar was enough to raise a smile of simple creative enjoyment rather than the grin and gob-smacked generosity that shook the hands of the other acts.

For Crowning Sky the sentiment isn’t on the loud and beautifully anarchic, it is on the dexterity of choice, the flavour of the profound and the simple pleasure; it is the just in the war-like and the music it gave the early crowd at Zanzibar was honest and deeply fascinating.

That sense of tremendous fascination deals out the feeling of the unknown and for a band that has been going for less than a year, the unknown hasn’t really set in. Instead, the name they have been slowly amassing is like a series of ballistic missiles being placed at the border and aimed for each guitar string and well placed lyric on offer. If this is unknown then visible stealth should be perhaps attached to it for visible is what they surely are, visible, proud and very cool.

In a night where the music was on perhaps the very highest of form available and in which the other acts were setting the bar to a point where other groups may have buckled under the pressure, Crowning Sky leapt at the opportunity to grace the Zanzibar stage and in songs such as God Only Knows, Feeling Favoured, the new track Fun and Hard Times, that leap of faith was rewarding and eloquent.

In an evening when the crowd at Zanzibar would have been aware of the three other artists, to have a tremendous surprise in the shape of Crowning Sky come to the fore was a touch of class, a diamond shaped joy in a tiara of gold.

Make time for Crowning Sky, seek them out, for this a four piece of quality.

Ian D. Hall