Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Although the E.P. title may allude to it, there is nothing Hand Me Down about the music writing and lyrical insightfulness of Thom Morecroft, a man who made Liverpool his home town, who has adopted it like a flag of honour but who also maintains the individual stride of pride in being a man inspired by his first surroundings of his native town. It is in this mix, potent, compelling and in many cases intoxicating, that makes his music a slice of enduring combination of Liverpool enthusiastic outpouring and Midland’s stoicism.

It is in the abiding mature nature of Thom Morecroft that things never end, songs that have been around for a while, that have been heard in one form can suddenly change, can take on a different resonance and meaning with just a subtle modification in the voice, a revolution in the mind, and in that the listener finds a new wave of respect for the song.

The four tracks on offer on the E.P., Coming up for Air, the ever delightful Daisy, Pride Hill, and What Are The Chances, all capture a certain mood, a playful but also resolute determination to bring the subtext of melancholic deep thought into the world. An argument for Time to be taken seriously, to be adjusted and adhered to in a way that some younger bands, lyric writers or poets can only dream of achieving. It may not come as any surprise that Mr. Morecroft is able to put actions into deed but it still has the feel of powerful insurrection that somehow Daisy, a track that is both stunning and light, can in the flick of an eyelid suddenly take on the mantle of upheaval, of not just caressing the past but allowing it to innovate, to set it out anew.

There is always a feeling of the respectable that comes from admiring Thom Morecroft’s music, Hand Me Down is not a discarded pleasure but one passed on from one person to another knowing the same love and enjoyment will be found, a gift of a performance.

Ian D. Hall