Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

There is a time for restraint and there is a time for the abandonment of self-discipline, the removal of the chains and shackles of biting your tongue, a time to make peace and the hour in which to send your thoughts willingly into battle, the guns firing upon your command; holding back the weary calm is a persistent drain on the soul, occasionally you have to let go, and by doing so in return you have to be sure that your defences are ready, that you can Brace For Impact.

The modern world is one in which the demand of self-control has been overtaken by the imposition of everybody having an opinion, but rather than keeping it to themselves, rather than talking over it with calm assuredness and polite restrictions, now the scream of instant justice is to be heard, the challenge of judgement in the eyes and senses of those who, in more cases than not, only wish to serve up drama where there was none to be found.

It is all in the snapshot of a single phrase or the hopeful cause of pleasure intended from a photograph, people interpreting the scene before them in such a way that they suddenly believe they know all there is to know and act as magistrate and prosecutor, their limitations only defined by the amount of trouble and hate they manage to stir up.

In Brace For Impact, She Makes War takes stock of the insistence of the reflex action and finds that in a wonderful act of self-discovery the pleasure in which the scathing of such on-line retribution can be countered with measuring out our presence in the virtual society. The one who screams the loudest may well garner the most attention but it is one that should be ignored, happiness a more insistent dynamic in which to feel at peace alongside.

For She Makes War, Brace For Impact is a legitimate call to arms, to guard against the manic obsessed, the over-sharing in the hope it increases our possibility of being noticed, and the opening up to the wrong crowd of people. In songs such as London Bites, Then The Quiet Came, Love This Body, Fortify and the opening track of Devastate Me, She Makes War with crucial boldness, the force of nature that sweeps with ease through the mind of the listener is one that cannot be contained, that must not be allowed to falter in the face of the unnecessary and the hate-fuelled. There is always time for restraint, there is always the hour in which to let of steam; just remember that by bracing for impact you can withstand all that may come your way.

Ian D. Hall