Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Believe the haters and nay-sayers and they will have you doubting your faith, that the confidence of your own heart and understanding is deemed to be faulted, to be viewed with suspicion, that scepticism is a god and that pure enjoyment on your scale is nothing short of an empty vessel, a tin can shouting to the wind and receiving nothing but scorn for its valour in the face of those who see fashion as their domain. Believe your own gut intuition, take what others say with reservation, see their point of view but don’t take their dogma as your own guideline.

It is considered that in today’s more discerning world that Rock as a concept is, if not dead, then slowly becoming irrelevant, a subject that has lost its lustre and shine, too many bands having had their say, too many songs focusing on alcohol, sex and personal demons, and with a guitar taking no prisoners as it laments with harsh beauty all that stands before it and domination of a new audience.

4 Shots! heard around the world, a sensitive riff encased with a shrewd lyric, a belief that belies the selected one-eye vision of others as nothing more than the will to force their creed onto a world they see fit to shoe-horn in to their own version of their soul. In this Collateral and victims, genres only fade in and out of fashion, what is philosophy one day, is nothing more than rumour the next and as Angelo Tristan, Todd Winger, Jack Bentley Smith and Ben Atkinson show with a burgeoning authority is, and despite the efforts of others, Rock is far from finished, its heartbeat still flourishes for all those willing to listen.

A more sensitive approach perhaps fills the air with Collateral’s debut E.P., 4 Shots!, a grace that once was supplied by the likes Aerosmith, of the beauty of Thunder, and yet underneath that cool exterior is the explosion of heat waiting to be felt, to be witnessed as it ricochets off and around the listener’s own raging soul, one that has not been tempered by those willing to downcast all art and its response to the human condition.

In the tracks Going With The Wind, Midnight Queen, Angels Crying and Just Waiting For You, Collateral suggest the dance and you cannot but help approve, you thank them for their sincerity, they applaud your conviction, and above all they guarantee that the music they bring to the halls and venues is not dead, it still breathes with majesty.

A considerable beauty is to be found in this debut E.P., one that warrants a smile against those who dare suggest that Rock no longer has a place in today’s society.

Collateral’s 4 Shots is out now.

Ian D. Hall