Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

The alternative side of the argument is one that is rarely acceptable to those who only see, and hear, their own prejudiced view. In a world that is overloaded with information, where for one simple question typed into the world wide web, a myriad of conflicting responses litter your inbox as if dumped there by a whirlwind, a tornado of useless information that you have to sift through just to find that nugget of information which means you can pull The Blinders off and find the alternative wealth of truth in a world that claims it is the real deal, the only reality.

It is in The Blinders debut album, Columbia, that the listener finds a new way to understand that politics has become the everyday occurrence in the last few years. The nation’s interaction with the fly-by-nights, the ones who find it amusing to dictate subjects such as austerity and the nation’s relationship in the wider world. this new release of the political engagement is double edged sword, that the youth have finally found a voice which is positive and fully charged but that to those who fear this new reasoning, the nightmare unfolding that they will not be able to return the feeling of patient revolution back in the box from where they can keep a firm eye upon it.

It is in the art of the resonating, truthful swagger that we are drawn to the sound of a new drum, of a war we didn’t even know had been declared, the vibration of the newly engaged resonates as it cries, it follows in the footsteps of the previous and the mighty but it has one added weapon in its armoury that the older generations didn’t have, it has greater appreciation that reality is a construct guarded by those whose wealth tells us what we need to know only. It is in that the album removes the chains and shackles, rips the blinds off the eyes and is ready, and raring, to take on the disease of False information.

In tracks such as Hate Song, Where No Man Comes, the scintillating power of expression in Ballad of Winston Smith, Brave New World and Orbit (Salmon of Alaska), The Blinders have found the right series of buttons which makes, which demands of the debut a sense of the calm, collected, and ready to light the beacons in the anticipation of fighting a bigger battle ahead. It is a battle in which the generations above had better be wary of standing in their way.  

The Blinders Will be performing at Liverpool’s Buyer’s Club on October 29^th.

Ian D. Hall