Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Imagine driving along a secluded, unlit and gloomy road, your headlights picking out the shadows of the hedges, of the trees that line the route like still soldiers on parade, then from out of nowhere, the Lightning In The Dark that illuminates more than you could ever witness when you are driving along in the sunshine, a snapshot that sparks life in your mind, and one that stays with you forever.

It is the seizing by nature of a single moment, the flash of inspiration that defines your soul in a way that sticks with you, the whole sky, the landscape, once obscure, now a greeting which sets all before you alight and one that in the nature of art is perhaps the greatest sense of occasion and poetic leaning that an artist can ever hope to capture, to harness, for their own personal use and for the education and edification of those they intend to present the snapshots of their mind to.

For Tom Fairnie, the lightning is a twinkle in the eye that has manifested into the need for prolonged exposure of the idea, refusing the impulsive, the precipitating hurried and hasty approach often sought by others in such a field of opportunity, instead the result is one of balance, of grandness folded between the sheets of humility, and one that echoes in the listener’s own thoughts as the thunder gently rolls in and the stories and the music create their own persuasive backdrop of humanity.

Across songs such as the sensitive If You Go West, the heartfelt memory that Sleeping On The Streets of New Orleans embraces, The Only Things I Ever Cried About, the excellent Give Me The Good Times and the tremendous appeal of The Winter of ’72, Tom Fairnie regales the scenes set before him, that he witnessed in one form or another, as the lightning ignited the sky and gave him a depth of vision few are blessed to see, such is the power of illumination and one made the absolute most of by the happenstance of being in the right spot to witness the Lightning In The Dark.

An album of depth, one that is beautiful and haunting, yet abundantly creative, Lightning In The Dark is a source of musical power.

Tom Fairnie’s Lightning In The Dark is out now and available to purchase from Birnam CD.

Ian D. Hall