Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
The bitterest pill we can swallow is the one when we realise that the discussion and exchange of hope we want to have with another human being is dominated either by aggression or by dismissal. One person’s reaching out and imploring is another’s chance to assert themselves to the point where hostility and conflict is inevitable. It is the contemporary way, we are fuelled by anger, disappointment and the prevailing winds of knowing each other’s business that we arguably feel as though we instinctively know better.
This Modern Conversation is one turned by grief, by sorrow, and one that is hard on a family, especially when all that can be solved is thrown out by the one who can no longer recognise the depth they have fallen to.
We do need to have these discussions, but we also need to understand that the way to bridge the gap is to be honest, but not mean, not malicious in the art of point-scoring, for that never helps grief, and only fuels the anger. It is a moment to which Liverpool’s Decay finds the time to explain elegantly and with sheer depth of decency as they showcase the songs that make up the five piece’s first release for Fox Records, Modern Conversation.
The hard-hitting lyrics are not ones to feel shame over, each person has their moment in which the world treats them as if they are a punch bag, continually pounding until the first seam splits apart and the echo of stuffing starts to puff out. As the songs Sentiment, New Again, Slow Decline, Been Blue and Lullaby take the initiative in dealing with today’s feeling of self-destruction and denial, Daniel Reposar, Connor Baugh, Nathan Peloe, Toby Hacking and Matthew Pickford tackle whatever comes to mind and have their say, but also with the tense emotions never far from the table in which other’s cards have been laid.
It is with confidence that Decay have placed these songs under the local microscope, and one that will receive tremendous attention in the national music arena. Modern Conversation is a moment in which the conscious is wrestled with and the consensus is that the actions of the world needs to be addressed.
Decay release Modern Conversation via Fox Records on 5th July.
Ian D. Hall