Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Should we all be so fortunate to see another day, to do over, to Mulligan the bad parts in which mistakes were made and in which hearts possibly were broken, taken apart by the inconsiderate word or the misplaced thought, nothing that should ever lead the virtually innocent to any Hangman’s Tree, not for just the smallest offence, not for the largest indiscretion.
Ben Granfelt’s Another Day hits home with its unmistakable hard thinking start and sense of proportion, this is an album which starts as it means to go and never wavers from the sense of outraged justice it wishes to convey, to shoulder into the mean battlefields’ armaments, and take them to the place where all weapons of destruction should be left, in the realms of history, consigned to rot. The only weapon truly required is truth and it something that Ben Granfelt truly holds close by and in the nearest holster.
The album starts off with sparks, with more glow than in the night sky during a thunderstorm or in a single night of fireworks supplied by the men who would plot against King James, it also does not relent, it hammers upon the door, sometimes in exasperation at the message not being recognised, the simple but intriguing communication of pleasure undertaken and used between musician and audience. Sometimes it beats so softly that it is the only sound the listener will here, everything else is a blur, a phantasm of quiet in the time spent being in love with each note and word captured.
It is in that the high floating sense of grandeur kicks in, one in which the sparks and the lightning are fully justified and exceptional. In tracks such as the opener Another Day, Shine Like The Sun Over Me, Endless, Heart On Your Sleeve and You Are What You Is, the energy is overflowing, the electricity has no idea where to go so it does the only thing that is left to, fill the ears of those listening and watch the buzz grow and swell.
Ben Granfelt is no innocent, not when it comes to laying down an album that is grand in size nor in what it does to the heartstrings, guilty on all counts and not one person who hears the album, who falls for it completely could be happier to see it used as positive evidence that he should be required to bring more to the court and lauded for his honesty.
Ian D. Hall