Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

It is the dichotomy to which nature and fantasy are willing to cross over into each other’s paths with greater ease than those who seek to divide the world through pain and glory, the truth is not just necessary, at times it is unpalatable, the poet may dress the world in garments to which the light reflects and shows off its tender side but it can also address the naked and the weary with symbolism and direct punches to the soul. To frame this in such a way that the imagery of Daffodils In Angell Town is only the word of truth and not to be distorted is to illuminate the message at hand.

Narcissus will look deep into the pond and fall in love with his own reflection, an echo of the way we view the world today, that our own entrenched opinions are sacrosanct, worthy of irrevocable resonance across the social media platforms and ignore the beat of one beside them, whose words may be different, who sees the rural as not a means of solitude but of exploration, to which Mutant Vinyl, also known as Edwin Pope, defends gloriously as the voice articulating a truth in his new album, Daffodils In Angell Town.

Not so much as songs, that allocation and the art of box filling is far to glib in tracks such as Ghosts of Dorset, Heads, Dreads, Jungle Lick in Soho, Pika, Purple Columns and Tear Down The Bunting, what these moments in time represent is an offering to delve beyond the civic and politely dull that infuse so much of our lives, and instead find ways to be energised, poetically and with spirit. Not songs, a manifesto with rhythm, of blinding poise but with a down to Earth appeal that grabs the listener and refuses to walk away until the message has sunk in.

An album of telling proportions, of declaration and intuitiveness to strike out far from Narcissus and the crowd’s testimony of untruthful ardour, Daffodils In Angell Town is a moment of reveal which is undisguised, blatant and marvellous because of it.

Ian D. Hall