Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Swansea has perhaps never felt so vibrant as it has in the last decade, the emergence, the phoenix like quality that makes the city stand in lofty affection by those who have visited it, the resilience of its people and the towering memory of a poet whose words stalk the South Wales valleys and waters all combine to make the second city of the country feel first class and cool.

Within that towering burden of responsibility dreams may pass, dreams can sometimes become shattered and die of neglect or worse, over thought, yet out of the once former Copper industry stockpile, the Industrial Revolution that took many of its citizen’s dreams and gave them nothing much in return, comes a new feeling of strength and it is in that strength that Orangefall offer their self-titled album to the world and the concentration of a new belief.

For Jason Morgan, Chris Bevan, Chris Angelow, Matthew Angelow and Tom Williams the heavy growling rock might be reminiscent of the noise of the foundries, of the sizzle of copper burning its way into the world’s economy and the relics of by-gone smelting pots dancing in the glow of the Welsh hillsides but it heart, the beat of the band’s grafting instruments mean much more than that. It tastes of hard-beating Rock, of a set of tunes that want to play rough and with delight and throughout each musical morsel offered, the sound of a future being pieced together to make something more valuable than anything the Industrial Revolution stole from the lives of their ancestors.

In tracks such as Brand New Morning, Jet Black Gold, System on the Low Down, the cool and precise Swimming With Sharks and the bruising brilliance of the album closer, Social Vampire, the songs of the valleys filter down to the Gower Penisula, they form a tidal wave at the mouth of the coast and place their wares, the beauty of the modern age, out for all to see and hear.

Orangefall have what it takes to go a long way, history and the present arguably helping them understand their chosen and fruitful path.

Ian D. Hall