Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

The relationship between humanity and the sea is one that can be seen in everyday life. As a species we are both fascinated by its calming allure and we are wary of the might and savagery it holds. As an island race, the British in particular feel the pull of the sea, it is the greatest defence and it is a source of food; it is also arguably one of the muses for beautiful poetry and majestic music that writhes like an eel through the veins of all who come into contact with it. For Iain Sutherland it is the reason, the inspiration, to go Back To The Sea.

The mood of the album is set possibly by the long and illustrious past in which Iain Sutherland has attained, the frankness of his lyrics uppermost in the mind when hearing the voice that can capture a heart with its appeal. Yet you can cage it indefinitely and with a measure of defiance, a degree of mastery, turn the key and pull down the blinds, making sure that the listener never truly leaves the world in which he has set out.

Back To The Sea takes that sense of fulfilment and adds the elemental force of imagery, it welds it together with fine craftsmanship and a certain quantity of biting wit and makes the recording roll with a deep longing. The gentleness displayed, the sincerity adhered too, all comes together in tracks such as Time and Tide, Shelter, the very superb Spider and Fly, the truth of Another Generation and the distress and suffering that spills over in the excellent Dark Side Of The Man. It is in these songs that the reality of life comes across, that in the end the tide and time, the waves of implausibility all erase with pleasure every achievement, every mark that we make in the sand.

Back To The Sea is an album of great and terrifying beauty, a whisper that turns into a roar; life is incomplete without the waves after all.

Ian D. Hall