Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

The way we consume music now is unarguably different to 20 years ago, even during the golden years of the singles charts being taken seriously as a measure of how the nation reacted to the aural stimulation provided by the imagination and creativity of its heroes and the unknown warriors fighting for a moment in the sun, what we now find is that the single is perhaps lost in the maelstrom of continual listening, it is the instant hit on the senses and without the same sensation on the fan’s anticipation as it once was.

The single though is possibly best described as the moment in which the next chapter was formed, like the evolution and growth of a person, we see the shape and feel of the thoughts coming together over time, the desperate highs, the low down moments of joy all combining to make an overall arc in the life of those who record it.

Whereas once in our time when a group or a musician put out an album combining a selection of singles, it might have meant cynically they needed a cash injection to keep themselves going whilst they contemplated their next move wither on tour or in the studio, now it is seen in the same vein as keeping in touch with your target audience, of never slowing down and allowing the brand to be seen as disappearing. How you view this is up to you, in the end music today can be seen as a consumable, not as a secret world being opened one stage at a time.

To delve headlong into the debate and cause a chasm to appear in the train of thought takes a special breed of musician, one who wants to bring the collection together without it ever being seen as marketing ploy. It is in this that Captain of the Lost Waves album Synthesis-The Story So Far is to be seen more of a serial, the continuing saga akin to those that played out on the cinema screen of our childhoods, but with the infectious belief sincerely drilled in that what the audience is hearing is a series of continuing thoughts, a diary entry across time in which growth and self-realisation is presented and in which the hero saves the day, in which the merciless of monotony is slain.

With songs such as Danger, January, Mr. Many Men, Uniforms and Another Planet all leaving their industrious, incredible mark on the listener, this is more than a collection of singles put together, this is part of a person’s life opened up, each chapter regaling into the next and one that is positively aglow.

Captain of the Lost Waves’ Synthesis-The Story So Far is out now.

Ian D. Hall