Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Never dismiss the softly spoken, never believe that the quietness in a person’s soul is indicative of their passion, their drive or their worth, for even the most still of volcano’s are capable of absolute destruction, wrath and sincere, serene rage; it is just that in the hours in which the sunshine almost obliterates the shadows attached to the body like some hangover from Peter Pan, Daylight Ghosts cannot be seen, but they can be heard to be real by great and unbound by chains effect.

Nick Ellis is a quiet man, yet his words not only speak volumes but they have, when listened to properly and with no back ground noise from the shadows, the power to shake your belief in the dark, in the certainty in your conviction and to question your darkest fears; this is the true spectacle of the guitar being played with a deft touch and a keen sense of balance, the force of the individual to shatter mountains but painstakingly rebuild each crevice and pulled down rock with humility.

It is in that humility that Nick Ellis stands tall, the man in black comes out the tempered shadows and finds that the voice he has always cajoled and inspired with, now in the quiet fury of the phantoms and the deathly silence of the abandoned banshee, has the right to show his mind off in full rainbow glory, that the ghosts of anybody’s past can be a blessing and a boon in their future.

In tracks such as the opener The Grand Illusion, the feeling of a journey not quite over in My Old Flame, In The Park, the superb Lovers in July and The Early Morning News, what comes across is a soul reaching out beyond the visible plain, that the eyes of a million people have been opened to the possibility of what actually lays outside the outward appearance of a man whose voice is kept low, thoughtful and full of unheralded ferocity. It is in the words and the coolness of a guitar, goading and smiling gently like a siren on the water’s edge that makes the songs glide and move softly across the senses.

A fabulously delivered album by Nick Ellis, Daylight Ghosts there may be but this is a set of songs that will haunt and inspire you none the less.

Ian D. Hall