Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

The combination of the concept album and your own life story is an intriguing proposition to contemplate setting down on paper and recording for future generations to study and hopefully enjoy; it is the big stage and great work of literature in which you are truly the subject, the musical autobiography in which the songs flow with a charming pulse and dynamic purpose and one in which your words are more important than those assigned to you by third party preaching.

It is a concept that is captured with tremendous effect and musical belief by Roger Pugh and his latest album A Colourful Journey, a trip down the conscious memory lane and the possible revealing of undisclosed recollections, for this committed member of the English Folk music scene,  this is life, a sentence turned to the musical endeavour, the delivery of words in which we all pass through but which only the observant understand the connections made are to be lauded and those lost to the ether just as vigorously defended.

Not quite making up the cast of thousands, but in many ways more endearing than any film that uses such methods of employment, the album relishes in the talent of musicians such as Greg Tempest, Roger Wilson and Matt Donaldson and the vocal expressions of Tonia Sorrell, Andy Griffiths, Pete Morton and Carole Palmer and it is one that makes tracks such as The Busker, Down at the Billet on Boxing Day, the superb The Day Before The Hanging, Run With the Moonlight, Trouble With Fred and Witches Flight such a fascinating and pleasurable listen.

Following on from the impressive 2009 album A Minstrel’s Tale, this is the story of a solitary individual, one bound with grace to the music, one to whom living is the point of existence and all that is bound up within it. We all have the responsibility, the duty to our souls to make life A Colourful Journey, unfortunately due to circumstances beyond our control, or even our own sense of apathy and possible rejection, we don’t achieve the possible; it is then to the likes of Roger Pugh that we hold aloft and praise and we should do so openly, for A Colourful Journey is the essence of all we ask for, and it is essential listening to those who view this world as beautiful.

A stunning album, A Colourful Journey is a masterful piece of music recording.

Ian D. Hall