Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

So grounded you could harvest the songs he writes as a special reserve coffee and sell him for millions, Jon Meadows has unleashed a track that starts with the discerning growl and ends with the eyes of the sacred tiger hanging on stalks with wide eyed eagerness at what possibly is to come. Should Have Been Mine could be the rallying call of anybody who wishes to plunge themselves into the punk-esque delight but who also knows that to polish some diamonds is to tarnish them forever.

Jon Meadows is a grounded man and an imposing figure when you listen to the music he creates; yet for all that imposition there is a gentle giant hanging in the doorway, the guilty smile of one who has taken mental notes of a scene that needs preserving and takes them happily, almost skipping with devilish glee, to the world.

It is in observation, the sometimes forgotten art of actually being at one with the world enough to make sure it is not unrepresented or misled, that the very best excel and throughout this short but muscular song. The foundation of the opinion stocky, well framed and proportionate for all it sets out to achieve and for Jon Meadows the result is bruising, a fight in a ring and no holds barred in which the only way to triumph is to tell the truth, to be unafraid; it is the bout that Jon Meadows will hands down seize victory with.

Some tracks come late in life, they require experience to be able to write them, for Jon Meadows Should Have Been Mine isn’t late, it is a conquest of being and one that hits hard with every second it is playing, the tigerish sweat, the feeling of having accomplished something so enveloping yet so simply designed it to be toasted, seized upon that polish is not everything in life. By applying too much force on any subject it can wipe away what makes it shine brighter than any star in the eyes of the beholder, Jon Meadows just holds it in his hands and allows the musical butterfly to feel safe and dramatic in its own way.

Should Have Been Mine is a triumph of a track and one that pounds with sincerity.

Ian D. Hall