Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
It is always in the hands of destiny, fortune, reputation, chance and fame to know just how you will have been received down the line; a classic band does not rely on those offerings alone of course, their sense of intelligent writing, music sensitivity and seizing the zeitgeist by the scruff of its hairy chin often play more of a part than the hopeful blessing spoken by some; and yet without it somehow it seems to not register just how great the band can be, how talismanic and intriguing they are.
If there is a band that epitomises the sheer depth of scale that should be credited them, it could arguably be Spear of Destiny, 35 years down the line with Kirk Brandon at the helm and one that still has the listener’s wrapped with a sense of overriding pleasure and spirit of ecstatic melancholia when taken on board.
It is in that same arena in which Spear of Destiny’s latest album dominates and controls with a sense of smiling gratitude that is ready for the fight. Tontine relishes in its power to still propel the generations anti-heroics to the very forefront of the listener’s and allow them the space to appear and take pleasure in the eyes of those who crowd the front of the stage.
Alongside Adrian Portas, Craig James, Phil Martin and the long-term subtle keyboard player Steve Allan-Jones, Kirk Brandon brings the new album’s tracks, including the fabulous opener Brighton, Mr. Livingstone I Presume, the exceptional Afrikan Proverb, Medievalists and Monuments In The Sand sharply into focus, a demon haunted unveiling which takes to task the sensibilities of pop and installs instead a gracious belonging of far greater renown and purpose, of feeling the kick when you are down but rising above the naked and marked aggression that is meted out.
You may have always felt that you know what you are going to get with a Spear of Destiny album, proportion, the feeling of rising above dejection and marked barbs of derision that float like waves of anger and passion colliding, slamming, into a harbour wall; all that may as well be, however there is something extra in Tontine, a sense of the unfamiliar in which to delve further into the recesses of the brain, a collection of songs which serve notice on the experiment of unrelenting and sycophantic pop.
A pleasure to have Spear of Destiny back in the studio, Tontine is testament to that hunger that still lives and breathes in the heart of Kirk Brandon.
Ian D. Hall