Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
It is at that moment when all things end, that sadness and reflection come together in a powerful storm of intoxicating magnitude. The moment when you are let go by the person you love, be it a parent, a sibling, the one you thought would last forever in your heart or even when you let go of yourself, when you realise that all you ever were was just a story, a collection of memories in someone else’s mind. It is a feeling of almost exquisite despair, of potent melancholy to know that you will not be able to tell them that, Your Heaven Held Me Well, even if it for a short while.
So many thoughts, so many synaptic misfires crowding the brain, the tongue dripping with saliva and the throat dry as the words refuse to make themselves do anything apart from either beg for mercy or go down the root of denial, heaven may hold a place for the hopeless romantic but someone else’s idea of the everlasting and righteous will also test you and it is a examination that is held up well by Evertim and their E.P. Your Heaven Held Me Well.
The four track E.P. is aggressive, punishing but full of hope in its beat, it is the heart that has been shocked down to its very core but which has the presence of mind to be at peace with decision reached, to see no sense in war.
In the four songs, Let Me Go, Tuesday, The Road We Claim Our Own and Clouds, peace and concord is placed alongside the rowdy and the punk ethic, pure pop rock but with snide sneer in the drums, no gimmicks or tricks, what comes across is a set of songs just played at the right conditions and with the nerve held rightly, a device which so many miss as the point of performance.
A test in admiration in which Evertim succeed in passing and with a great deal of pleasure attached to their work. Your Heaven Held Me Well, it is good to feel the heart beat with a smile when the time of ending is upon us all.
Evertim’s Your Heaven Held Me Well is released by Fox Records on January 19th.
Ian D. Hall