Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Gravity, in the end, will only pull us down, as Marillion noted in their haunting track The Only Unforgivable Thing, a reminder perhaps that we can only fly so long on the wings of promise, on the air currents of experience and dreams; eventually we have to consider that we may have flown too high, that like Icarus, we must be brought down to Earth and confront and assess our beliefs.
Just Like Gravity, humility keeps us grounded, it reminds us of past endeavours, of glories entertained and of spirits kept high; it also serves us the anarchy of our soul, to understand that, no matter who we are, there are moments of pure beauty to which our soul can never surrender to Time’s punishment, only to embrace them forever.
As part of the two re-issue release of CPR’s limited, but ultimately sensational back catalogue, the memory of David Crosby, Jeff Pevar and James Raymond as a musical entity leaves long time music lovers salivating over what was once, and recriminating over the details of what might have been; and it is that melancholic delivery that captivates, and perhaps that divides Time and the listener.
In the release of 2001’s Just Like Gravity, that unrepentant beauty is to once more believe in the existence of human forces of nature, not just those that cause a breeze to be felt across the world, but those that cause hurricanes, their absolute physical presence tearing through the emotions and the heat of our time, that makes it difficult to breathe anything but their proposals to humanity.
In Just Like Gravity, the hurricane comes in three parts, three distinct personalities and performances, that combine so perfectly that the listener is overwhelmed by the feelings of contentment and underlying fantasy they experience. Across tracks such as the opening amazing salvo of Map To Buried Treasure, Breathless and Darkness, CPR saunter to perfection is gravity defying, the sun refusing to melt the feathers created in Jerusalem, Angel Dream, Katie Did and Coyote King, the calls for the epic fall to Earth, misplaced and void.
In the world of the constantly renewing, in a time where we look to new at all times, a reissue of CPR’s work and vision is to be welcomed, to be adored, unquestioned, Just Like Gravity.
Ian D. Hall