Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
It is never The End, there is always something that pulls you back, a memory that keeps the person in your mind, a certain word, a phrase, a recall during the night that makes you smile, go red with embarrassment or perhaps have you reaching out for a hand that is not there anymore.
There is a sense of energy that has always been associated with ME And Deboe, arguably one of the great duos of modern times, two women with an outstanding knack to read each other’s minds it seems when it comes to producing not just incredible vocal harmony but the agility to transfer that dynamic to the guitars and the lyrical pounding they punch the air with time and time again.
If ever a duo exemplified genuine 21st Century progressive attitude and the voice, the roar of the female character, one that arguably is a direct descendent of the Suffragette movement, then ME And Deboe are that pair; it is not to hard a stretch to understand that they should be considered as being breathed in the same tones now as Simon and Garfunkel, more anger certainly, more of a British, most defiantly Northern, not whimsical but alluring. It is in all that the hand that reached out, believing it would find just empty space, finds instead the solid musical arrangement set out by the twosome in the song The End.
“This is not the end” they initially implore, the sound of the acoustic guitars playing out as if they are raging in the heat of the desert, the anger, the control, all is measured, all is time and both Mercy Elise and Sarah Deboe are masters of this particular art.
It is in the growl of the song that you notice the tender underbelly, the lyrics and the way they are delivered, the softness of the truth they show you, the passion they want you to understand, the fervour and obsession they want you to sink into and relish. If a song by the pair reaches out in a way that has not been felt with quite as much enthusiasm before, then The End is it, a growling masterpiece, a moment of clarity and precision, to fall in love at The End is all that you can do.
Ian D. Hall