Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
Whether we win or lose, regardless of failure, defeat, collapse at the final staggering hurdle or in our moment of glory we take to the microphone placed before us, the sweat beating off our brow, pouring with rampant pace off our chin and falling with grace to the floor beneath us, we should always urge caution to our brains and mouths lest they run away with excitement or bitter disappointment, to refrain from uttering words that may come to become more than a memory to us, Never Say Never.
We should always embrace the ending as well as the beginning, the opening chapter is always just as eagerly devoured as what may seem a final bow. It is though a bow that is a long way off for the tremendous and passionate voice of Sari Schorr, a bow that is only given in thanks to the audience, an appreciation that has worked both ways, and one that rightly continues in Ms. Schorr’s second album, Never Say Never, one that proves the force of nature within is untameable and worthy of the performances witnessed so far in her career.
The album is gritty, the voice undeniable, a rawness of spirit captured by the insistence of recording the album live, of working closely with Henning Gehrke and sharing the writing procedure with someone who gets where the strength of each syllable and mouth-watering punctuation is required to produce such devastating beauty and effect.
It is in this collaboration that makes the tracks around it, the cover of Mick Ralphs’ Ready For Love, the search for the epic in The New Revolution, which was written in conjunction with Bob Fridzema, Ash Wilson, Mat Beable and Roy Martin, and the heart-breaking but understanding finale, a soulful encounter of voice and mind in former Small Faces supreme keyboard player Ian McLagan’s Never Say Never, all stand out without the listener breaking stride in their admiration for Ms. Schorr’s highly impressive work ethic.
The work laid down is one of discovery, of travelling enlightenment, of seeing new places and knowing that pleasure comes from shaking hands with the unknown, by being best friends with that which surprises you, and as songs such as the opener King of Rock and Roll, Valentina, Turn The Radio On and Back To LA, all register the definition of the voice on show, the muscular promise granted, Never Say Never becomes an album of seismic proportions, a judgement that never wavers in the delivery of a woman at the top of her game after years of sacrifice and learning.
Sari Schorr releases Never Say Never via Manhaton Records on Friday 5th October 2018.
Ian D. Hall