Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

We take it for granted as we walk along the street, and yet something deep within us hopefully understands that but for the grace of our own circumstances and internal fortitude, we too could be flat-lining, we might be out cold on the pavement and with nobody caring about us, only the sideways glance and the downward stare of derision the only contact being made.

The Air I Breathe and the thoughts we share on certain subjects are such that we can perhaps never inhale the same reasoning, our attitudes are never going to be exactly the same and a deep breath of consideration for one is but a moment in the darkness for another and in the country’s current grip of opioid and class A drug epidemic, what we witness is a division, a separation of empathy and it is one that we must all find the courage to deal with and to help others regain their natural state of mind away from the destructive hold.

There have been many songs that have captured this concerned effort, few have truly exposed the dangers, some have glamorised the problem, and a handful have shown the responsibility in their music to show that the problem never goes away, it just simply changes its name and its purpose.

Alan Triggs finds a way to delve into the situation, and taking his lead from the spice epidemic and the recovery of some individuals that have fallen low, has arranged one of the most insightful, beautiful and hopeful songs that deals with the subject that too many will still believe is taboo.

The songs does not ask the listener to judge or to see it as some fallen crusade in which glamour has dug its heels into, instead it offers a kind of hope, a realisation that the person we see unresponsive on the street has not done this as a game but has been driven to it by the never ending demands of society, the faster, more elite, the confusing, the unpredictable nature of the times and above all the sense of depression and unhappiness when we have been pushed too far. It is no wonder that many will do their best to escape the life they have been led to believe was futile, that their words and deeds meant nothing; if pushed yourself you will either fight back or admit defeat, there is no other way to deal with it.

The Air I Breathe might not be the first one that you think of when thinking of the immense talent that lives within Alan Triggs but it is the one that undoubtedly resonates in the current climate as being the most honest and crucially open. A song that will touch the soul and make you open your eyes.

Ian D. Hall