Liverpool Sound and Vision rating * * * *
The world has taken a strange turning, instead of being ready to guard against the sense of the insidious and the pathetic, it seems many are willing to embrace the concept of self-serving individualism, a spectre of another time when to speak your mind in one direction was met with the utmost evil of retributions.
The thought that we are just solitary islands weathering the storm around us, is not only absurd, but supremely dangerous, it is a belief that has more in common with rumour than it does fact, and yet the belief continues, it magnifies, and with even the strongest of minds falling for the allure of all that glitters, it is hard to shore up the defence politically and socially.
It is almost as if the phrase Midnight and Closedown has become a mindful perceptive thought of just what life was before we reached out beyond the natural borders, the clock has struck, the hand goes over the heart and the false declaration of mortal love for leader and country is pronounced as the strains of a national anthem is heard to stir the heart.
It is a decree to which is reminiscent of the way visual media used to sign off, the glory of the graphic world spinning on its axis, the music playing and the final goodnight from a broadcaster with received pronunciation or the insanity of a collected cinema audience standing at the end of film; it is this false loyalty leads and one that Lau dig deep into as the passion and echoes of dedicated observation show in their new album, Midnight and Closedown.
It is in the sense of taking apart the argument of current political climate, the division which has torn these islands apart, that Lau remarkably are completely in tune with, and with Kris Drever, Martin Green and Aiden O’ Rourke putting serious muscle into the songs She Put On Her Headphones, Echolalia, Itshardtoseemtobeokwhenyourenot and Return To Portland, what the listener soon understands is that there is another way to deal with the situation, that if we listened to each other instead jumping into the conversation with our opinions and answers already fully formed, then perhaps midnight would be greeted with a sense of hope for the next day, and closedown would be a thought relegated to the back pages of history.
An album of dynamic arrangement and thought, Lau have once again stepped up to the plate and delivered magnificently.
Lau release Midnight and Closedown on February 8th 2019.
Ian D. Hall