Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Without the feeling of adoration, the heaviness of fondness and the tenderness that comes when love rears its nostalgic head and winks with the satisfaction of a school girl crush that turns into a long lasting marriage, life is not worth a jot. It has no meaning and even if it is just once, a pure and magical once that the stomach feels the tight knot of weakness at never wanting to see someone else cry, then it proves beyond measure that Love is worth every spent tear.

For Dan Wilson, the concept that All Love Is Blind is one that fits wonderfully well into the pantheon of Liverpool music to have come out since the turn of the new century and one that kick starts the heart into hearing a sound of a man whose voice is not only full of soul but its gravelly delivery, the full throated throttle of visible observance, catches the ears in a way that is impossible to dismiss.

All love may be blind but it still has the power to transform a life, to take it beyond what was once expected and to make the heart sing in praise and pressure of living up to the expectation of someone who cannot see your faults, your attributes or your folly, just the ideal of someone who looks at you, who hears what you have to say, with open mind and without alternative motive.

With the aid of the musicians and backing vocalists Simon Montague, Siofra Ward, Mikey Kiney, Keith Thompson, Laura Campbell, Mark Percy, Andy Frizzell, Rod Leung, Kal Ross and Alex Gavaghan, songs such as the album title track, Lonely Drunk, Loved But One Woman, So Long My Sweet World and Where Did All The Love Go? move and twist, flow with the strong emotion of the just and lived and ask only that the listener thinks of a time when love was perhaps the furthest thing from their mind, that love may not have been blind but certainly wasn’t looking their way; it is a statement that makes All Love Is Blind something of a endearing truth, of untarnished reason and one in which Dan Wilson has excelled in revealing throughout the course of the album.

A smashing sense of timing, of lyrics captured with heart and depth, maybe All Love Is Blind after all but it should still be felt and cherished.    

Ian D. Hall