Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

There is honour to be found in the raw, the angry and furious. It is the honour of producing truth, a sense of freedom that you want to immerse yourself in and take stock from every now and then as you remember with clarity how you wanted to change the world, how you wanted to be the person that was the catalyst of the revolution.

That voice, that declaration, comes in many accents, it sometimes stutters, sometimes it is half hearted and lacking passion; in K. Flay it is brave, it is robust and as agile as a newly crowned gymnastics champion and in her single Blood In The Cut, taken from her brand new E.P. Crush Me, the mistress of maverick, the infectiously moody voice sings with guile, needle like scar ripping her lyrics out in some sort of beautiful primal urge to heard. As confessional as listening to Sylvia Plath remonstrate and conjoin with Virginia Woolf. It is to be admired as you would appreciate the scream of the downtrodden as they finally find the courage to fight back.

To feel is to desire, to understand pain is to appreciate its strengths and know its weaknesses and own those two varied dark twisted animals in the same manner. It is an ownership that K-Flay takes very much to heart and the demons that may have existed in her life are shown a lyrical sword in which they are hacked down and roasted over a blazing fire.

Whilst the feeling may be dark, the candid and incisive battle that she declares is one that makes Blood In The Cut a song of deliverance, of choosing freedom over captivity and one that is engraved in the heart of all who follow the same deliberate path. Whether it is in the hip-hop style that lives under the song’s core or in the flow that makes it rock with joy, Blood In The Cut is liberty and longing all in one booming educational song.

A delightful non-conformity resides in the honour of the song and one which K-Flay enjoys producing for those who seek redemption in humanity’s ills.

Ian D. Hall