Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Rivers tell the stories that we often cannot hear, and if we do, we don’t understand the meaning, too often cast adrift into the deeper waters where we stand no chance of hollering to the shore or being seen by the ones who care, instead we guess at the fortune we have that the river is at least taking us somewhere, guiding us as it whispers, singing, if we are fortunate to even glean a perception of its power, us a lullaby of grace.

Rivers are the life blood and the arteries of a nation, the stories, transferred from the days of Folk to more modern expressions, are upheld as a signal of the value and trust we place upon them, and for King Calaway and their debut full length album, Rivers is the embodiment of expression, the sense of timing that has come together, one that cannot wait to take the audience on a journey to another place entirely.

It is with grace and a rush of blood to the veins that gets the heart beating with more than just a case of sentiment as the listener wraps their own senses around tracks such as More Than I Do, Obvious, Driver’s Seat, the fabulous Picture Of The Way You Are, the tremendous cover of Stephen Still’s Love The One You’re With and World For Two. It is the acknowledgment of musical wit, of the fury that comes with the storm, of the rage against entitlement, but also the gentle pressing of foreheads together, the deep look into another’s eyes and finding what has long been missing, an air of salvation and hope.

For Chris Deaton, Simon Dumas, Chad Michael Jervis, Jordan Harvey, Austin Luther and Caleb Miller, Rivers is a moment of the first part of the journey, as the waters of the music takes them on further, it will be hard to say you have not heard their song as you walk along the banks with your head in the clouds; sometimes life is more pleasant when you listen to the sound of the Rivers, rather than the imagined tales of those in the sky.

King Calaway’s Rivers is out now.

Ian D. Hall