Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

To hear a new Ian Prowse song before the album is ready to be distributed to the world is almost like finding out that during the following year you will have two birthdays and that Merseyside will be granted the independence it so badly requires; some things are beyond expectation.

Taken from the forthcoming album Compañeros, the beautifully stirring duet with Pauline Scanlon that sits at the very heart of Mississippi Beat is one that really gets down deep into the soul and asks so much of the listener, it requires a level headed response and calmness in the face of the breaking heart that it helps spur along, so much so that if a tear should fall, then it won’t be the last. Beauty doesn’t just inspire, it can smash the defences down and have you stoically weeping into a lover’s arms

Mississippi Beat is one of those songs that defines a friendship, regardless of whether it has gone on to great heights and unimagined tales of adventure or in fact if it has soured, gone wrong and become displaced as the very fractious nature of relationships becomes apparent.

The sadness that can be heard is full of pathos and it can be compared with the song Arm In Arm, which whilst is a truly uplifting track and one in which the protagonist rails against the unexpected division he finds himself in, the overwhelming grief of loss is paramount and startlingly melancholic.

There is no such thing as a bad Amsterdam or Ian Prowse song; it’s like suggesting that just because the black thunder clouds lay heavily over the Mersey it doesn’t mean the sun isn’t shining over Liverpool. In this so sits the grandeur of Mississippi Beat, a song in which the heart growls in appreciation but also reflects silently upon all we have lost in pursuit of the next heartbeat.

The beat goes on ever forward and for Ian Prowse, Mississippi Beat is but an important and worthwhile prelude to what is to come.

Ian D. Hall