Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Everything may well be temporary, everything might just be verging on the momentary and the transitory as we speed though existence, temporary is just another way of saying that we are filling in time. Yet some forms of satisfying Time’s inexhaustible stranglehold on our brief seconds are to be seen as the start of something beautiful, enduring and eternal; it just depends on fortune and the open souls of those who wish to see Time as an ally and not as a spirit to race against.

The fascinating arrangement by the Bouquet of Dead Crows, the charming Of The Night, is one such instance in which temporary leads to class for as the album progresses, as Antoinette’s searing vocals take hold of Time and makes it flush with embarrassment for having ever doubted that humanity is capable of raising itself beyond the petty and obscure, the feeling of immense satisfaction begins to heal any rift that opened as during the short term.

Charming it is, the sweeping gestures applied by Neil Bruce, Graeme Clarke and Andrew Coxall are wonderfully unending, they capture the point between vocalist and band and they merge it with impossible ease; there is never a moment in the album when the music is anything but Progressive and full of undying soul, the type that sits gently in the body and allows contentment to come forth and stay awhile.

There is much to be thought of between the dusk and dawn, many steer clear of the whisperings that Time alludes too but Of The Night is a necessary wander in the shadows and one that allows the feeling of exhilaration and excitement to start welling up, so much so that songs such as Drownout, The Fundamental Flaw of Solitude, Like A Flower and Everything is Temporary shine like a lighthouse, carved out in its own seclusion and battered by constant, crashing disdainful waves and the light it radiates a message of hope in that darkness.

A magical album to come across, Bouquet of Dead Crows is a swagger of a band, one that is honest as is it enlightening, Of The Night is something special indeed.

Ian D. Hall