Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

A tribute does not always go hand in hand with respect, at best a moment recaptured can glow like the sun in the sky without a single cloud obscuring it, bright, worshipful, praiseworthy from all concerned, and then there are the times when it comes as crass, irresponsible, censured by parties and public alike. Tribute and respect though is an honour to which Liverpool’s The Suns hold deep in their souls, and when it comes to one of the city’s own, when it comes to the deep beauty that Colin Vearncombe provided in his guise of Black.

As part of the recorded upcoming tribute titled Love, Colin, The Suns’ own moment of honest praise comes in the form of the exceptional track, Everything’s Coming Up Roses, and it is one that that captures the heartfelt consistency of the artist’s life and work, and brings a new depth of appreciation for The Suns’ own passion and intense understanding of music insight.

To offer such reverence is an emotion that many of us cannot hope to hold, the endeavour will be there, the sentiment will be sincere, but it will for the most part always be seen as duty, a responsibility that overwhelms us and binds us to that moment forever; not so with this sensitive and deferential outpouring, for in Everything’s Coming Up Roses there is the sense of loss driven through the D.N.A. of the song, a debt that cannot be repaid but is acknowledged honourably.

The Suns are one of Liverpool’s crowning reasons to urge the return for live music when the time is right, but in this flowering track, in the framing of beauty for the artist, the song and the reason, that time really cannot come soon enough.

The world lost an enormous soul with the passing of Colin Vearncombe, an unexpected tragedy which hit Liverpool’s music community hard, in this wonderful rendition of one of Colin’s sensual and dramatic songs, The Suns have honoured the man, as well as the music that gave Liverpool its heart.

Ian D. Hall