Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

If it isn’t broke, then don’t fix it, you can always improve and make the art just that little more special but when you have hit such a cool vein of expression that is distinctly your own, then the right thing to do is look upon it as a sign of confident passion and one when the time comes can be thought of the moment when you Put It Back Together again.

In David Nixon’s latest E.P. that sense of continuation is paramount, it is dominant and held in the palms of the artist’s hands as if it is a peace symbol, a dove that has had at one time the severest of intentions placed upon it but to whom now can flap its wings and nestle in the safe care of someone who adores the concord achieved that comes from trying to cross the void between one recording and another.

From This Side Other Side, through to Navigation to the delight of the strong four songs that make up the Put It Back Together E.P., David Nixon, alongside Jon Lawton, Chris Howard, Tony Peers and the sublime vocals of Amy Chalmers, make that difficult jump between wonderful releases and the possible darkness of unsure proposition, one of depth and character, a set of songs that hold their own no matter the company they keep.

In the songs If Not For That Day, Eve’s Disguises, What Did I Have Before? and the E.P. title track Put It Back Together, David Nixon catapults across the space that was left between and emerges with so much dignity in musical battle that it is enough to shroud the listener in the same gilded coat of expression, in the same hope that in the slightest crack in our outward smile, of the snap of our insides, that we can also Put It Together Again.

An experience gained and one that is tantalisingly worthwhile; it may just a few songs in which David Nixon seeks out from the dark but it is four songs that captivate and thrill with ease and pleasure. Put It Together Again, sometimes it doesn’t have to be broken to understand that everything can be made a little better.

Ian D. Hall