Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
It is only when the demons bite and the desperation of a phone call at four in the morning becomes a necessity that you find out the truth behind a friend’s true statement of Anytime You Need Me, just call. It is a sign of more than friendship, this is a family that chooses you to be part of, a declaration of love and honour, one that can withstand the blues of life, but instead installs the hard rock in which to grasp hold of when it feels like you a drowning in a raging river of problems, indecision and false hope.
When it comes to hope, when it comes down to knowing who you can trust, art holds the aces tightly to the chest, not a subject for those who practise illusion or false-heart, the artist chooses carefully their friend, after all anybody can be a hanger-on, anyone can see the blues, but it takes a special breed to live through it, to feel the artist in every word delivered, and in the case of Ben Poole, every drop of energy spent in piecing together an album which captivates the soul upon the first listen.
Anytime You Need Me is not the sentence uttered by those that carry a sense of hope in their heart, of understanding, for these rare individuals you will recognise by their deed, by their actions, not the familiarity of their words and as Ben Poole takes on songs such as Take It No More, Found Out The Hard Way, Further On Down The Line, Let Me Be, Holding On and the extraordinary reading of the Eagles’ Don Henley and co-writer Danny Kortchmar’s track Dirty Laundry from Don’s solo album I Can’t Stand Still, with panache, style and a deftness of soft introspection, an almost analytical research which is both fascinating and crucial to the overall charm of the album on offer.
For the most part you take such words as anytime you need me with a cautionary fix, after all, nobody truly means it, but in Ben Poole the listener instinctively knows that this is true, that the music is his word, Anytime You Need Me is one of those rare beasts you can play at any time of day and night and find that it works, the mood you are in only enhancing the virtue felt and responded to.
An album of response, of declaration, Anytime You Need Me is a positive endeavour and one of freedom.
Ben Poole releases Anytime You Need Me on Friday 14th September via Manhaton Records.
Ian D. Hall