Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

First they tell the artist that their work is just a pastime, next they tell the writers they are being foolish, they have always decried the poet but when they start on the musician, there is nobody left to defend them. All art is under attack by those without imagination, by those who seek to undermine the process of creativity; for the artist suffers and like the coal miners in which Matt Dunbar speaks so eloquently of, once they are done with that spark of genius or labour, they will then come after everybody else.

Matt Dunbar’s Home is one based in the mindset of broken dreams, of opportunities missed but also perception and perspective gained, it is the honesty of a man who has grown up in an area ravaged by Government folly and dangerous liaisons but also one in which he knows has been the backdrop to his life. It is the vital essence in which he has been able to make something off his life artistically and go onto record the stories of his own thoughts and those of the people that have dominated his past.

Like the miners of Northumbria who dug deep for the black gold that powered a nation, Matt Dunbar excavates and burrows, every so often shoring up behind him with solid oak timber, deep into his psyche of the artist and takes stock of all that he was and has left behind and what may have been if he had not been able to express himself with the help of University life.

Whilst some bemoan the academic grounding, it is a state of education that has allowed him the freedom to think, time has changed the country, not always for the good and to be able to think, to not toe a line and doff a hat blindly in fear anymore is something we should all be able to do, Governments fall because we can think independently.

With tracks such as the very cool Bridget Jones Diary, Here Comes The Brave, Miner’s Day and the E.P. title track Home all capturing the essence of the man perfectly and with beautiful balance, Home is where the writing is started but it is to the audience in which the fires of his thoughts are ignited and warmed. An effective and stunning statement of truth, Home is the place to be.

Ian D. Hall