Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

They always promise Better Times, they will tell you that on the horizon there is a gigantic slab of jam, several spoons and enough Cornish clotted cream to go with it; that those times are always worth waiting for. The trouble is with better times, somehow they end up like a routine from The Morecombe and Wise Show, one shoe never fits, is often not the right shoe in a pair and that collection of spoons is really knives ready to be plunged in the back and the clotted cream is anything but Cornish.

Better Times they promise but rarely deliver, and yet if you take the time to listen to Rob Clarke and the Wooltones, those times are at least afforded dignity, they are given freely and all because the band know that to tease without fulfilling the single promise is the act of the base scoundrel. They might not have the Cornish clotted cream to hand but they do know how to spread the joy and the thought of their music; Better Times indeed, when Rob Clarke and the Wooltones are involved.

The single is soft, full of melody; it builds up a relationship with the listener as if being gently serenaded by a lullaby, a sense of being not just sung too but held, that they won’t lie to you about the state of the world at this moment in time but they will make it easier for you to believe that it can only get better.

Time is a fickle mistress, get too comfortable and she will bite you on the backside and not in a passionate way; however Better Times are there, sometimes it takes soul searching and not jam but when you have a band such as Rob Clarke and the Wooltones on your side, there is always hope.

A gentle, tender song, perhaps one that might be unexpected but it is one that is mellow, smooth and honest; a sense of peace prevails.

Ian D. Hall