Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

You are never where you want to be, and the effect of nostalgia has a demanding effect, not only as you get older, finding the whimsy of the scarlet hue of youth a perfect place in which to reminisce but because of the way that modern life has such a strangle-hold on the way we communicate and the way we live, perhaps going months, even years from seeing those we hung around as children, when the world was an easier place to believe that all would be alright.

The evoking of certain memories is almost like torture, it may seem at first to be a pleasurable stroll, a moment in time that you truly want to see again, to live in once more, to hold, to touch, to feel the emotions, but it comes with a heavy price, it can cost the future you have worked so hard for and in the sense of purpose you seek, the light grows dim, it leads to dark places, instead of the beauty that comes when you realise that all that you really ever wanted is to be seen in This Room Burns Bright.

It is a type of nostalgia that has great benefit when placed in the right hands and the sense of purpose as using as it as a tool, of capturing a thought in flight and studying it, controlling it, never allowing it to get under the skin, and most assuredly allowing it to float away when the memory becomes overwhelming, like a butterfly, its beauty comes from it being in flight, to see its wings glint in the sun; memory should never be lauded like a moth, for in This Rooms Burns Bright, it can scald and destroy if not careful to be around.

The six songs that make up the wonderful E.P. by Matt Dunbar, Drive, Midnight, Noah, the sublime Your Place which had already sparked notice of what was to come when it was released as a single, She’s My Girl and Hanover Way have their own intriguing way if getting in to your mind and under the skin, they remind you, with care, of all that you may have left behind, all that was once coated in fondness. It is a generous and positive way to remember good times, because it doesn’t shy away from the melancholy of what happened either side of the smile, it doesn’t want you to throw everything away in a fit of tangled emotion, it just wants you to know that life is one of evolving progress, of letting go of childhood loves.

A superbly delivered set of songs, poised and dignified, Matt Dunbar, Liam Fletcher, Steve Coates, Jake Waugh and the talented voice of Holly Rees on the song Your Place, This Rooms Burns Bright is a sharp-witted reminder that the past may have been a wonderful place, but you should always have both eyes on what the future holds as a possible prize.

Ian D. Hall