Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Life is a delicate balance between the angels urging you on as they sit on your shoulders and the soft whisper of anarchy that resides in your soul, the game they play between them, the constant tussle of good and drama is a balancing act that many find tipping too much in certain directions.
Whether you listen to the spirit in your ear or the beauty in your soul, A Delicate Game is forever being played out and it one that has to be enjoyed, to be taken by the muscle that hides away shyly underneath the ribcage, and revelled in, for whilst it may be considered A Delicate Game, the rules are ever changing and free from rigidity.
The Top Floor Taivers take the delicate sport of love over drama to an exquisite height in their debut album, the four women who make up the group stepping out of the shadows imposed by the delicate game of music at its most natural and oblige the listener with a sense of sound that is frighteningly beautiful; as if the angels have found a direct way to the heart and bypassing the sneaky devil of the soulful Devil.
Tina Jordan Rees, Grainne Brady, Heather Downie and Claire Hastings take the songs from the album and regardless of their original intent, make them sway with shimmering light. There is a ray of sunshine that hits each note, each Kernel of recorded bliss, which weaves each strand as if it was golden thread, a sewn yarn that loops all the tracks into one cohesive blanket of Folk.
In songs such as the stunning cover of Findlay Napier’s Princess Rosanna, Leonard Cohen’s velvet like Everybody Knows, the wonderful Jeannie and the Spider, which was written by Heather Downie and her brother Alasdair, and Claire Hasting’s delightful Little Men, the group’s effortless display of affection towards each song is akin to treading softly along a beach of warm soft sand; the pleasantness of the experience becoming engrained into a sense of well being and astute comfortable harmony with nature.
It is A Delicate Game we play within and one that has to balance and kept close to our own ideals, Top Floor Taivers enhance that feeling greatly.
Ian D. Hall