Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

It is surely to be considered a sense of understanding that artists of any creed or background are shaped not only by what they see happen in the day, the wave crashing against the reluctant rock; the anarchy in someone’s eyes when they pay for an item in the shop in pennies. They are shaped by their environment, they inhabit the rock that is pounded by the wave and feel the small myriad of tiny creatures that scurry in the pools formed, they are the penny dropped with sarcasm into the palm of a harassed shop worker; in their vision they see the Coast and the till as one.

For the island of Benbecula’s Coast the inspiration behind their new album must surely be one of ruggedness, of the ability to withstand the storm and through the character of the landscape and the far off world, see something beautiful, to proclaim to the world that even as far as Holland there are in fact Windmills In The Sky.

It is in the sense of ruggedness that the imagination that flows through the air can be sought, the sense of culture, of the uniqueness of the island and its proximity with the Atlantic Ocean to one side and the once gilded lights of the U.K. now fading in the distance, that makes the album such a dream to listen to. In the vocals and musicianship of Paul Eastham, Mop, Chris Barnes and Findlay Wells, Coast have become an outstanding band with the proverbial wind in their sails.

The way they paint a portrait of their lives, of the undoubted island that they hail from and the sense of the stunning bleak and rampant heather that weaves its way through songs such as No More Heroes, 1884, Let It Rain, Thundersnow and That Old Atlantic Sky, is to feel life course through the blood of the veins, the colour and texture is there and the windmill, the movement is hypnotic, rhythmic and just as creative and fascinating as the way it can only be when witnessed for the first time .

Windmills In The Sky is a genuinely enjoyable album, one that is not afraid to revel in the ways of those who inhabit a different view, who see the world for the distance and closeness that it can bring in equal measure; an album which is ambient and passionate.

Ian D. Hall