Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7.5/10

An artist who speaks their mind, is worth their weight in gold; an artist who doesn’t mind the thought of how his ideas may be interpreted should on many levels be lauded and praised for having the courage and the audacity of their convictions to be seen for standing for the notion of uniqueness. It is into that arena, that barbed cage of industry that Duncan Ewart throws his hat into the ring for and which not many could claim to have tossed A Better Hat upon.

The feeling of anger, of a tempered disillusionment and neglect fill the void that stands between the listener and the stereo and yet the listener is not aloof from the pain and the subtle hints of joy that filter across the space, they are immersed into the remoteness, the cataclysmic void as one is thrown into a black hole, nobody knows what truly awaits on the other side but the journey is begging to be taken.

The five track strong E.P. is a tremendous undertaking and whilst there will be those to whom the songs perhaps verge on the lyrically demanding, the use of certain industrial language acting as a mask of distance, they nevertheless have strength of purpose and poetic sociable grace attached to them.

In Massive Glowing Weak, the impressive Classy (Revert To Form), I Am Not A Swan, Dexter and the E.P. closer Princess Bride, the tracks make themselves at home, a house that is filled with both love and pain, of security in truth but also distilled wrath at what has become of it all; it is the friend to have and the one who got away all in the same genie like bottle and one that doesn’t let the listener forget the singular beauty that resides in honest appreciated anger.

A truly cool E.P. in which to delve into, one that might take you to places which you might not be ready to submit to, but somewhere we all end up visiting once in a while, Duncan Ewart is a talented man with a message to deliver.

Ian D. Hall