Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
The tragedy of human existence is that it is over in the blink of an eye, just as we find out who we are, we return to the void and the cold, having only achieved and realised an infinitesimal amount of the potential energy we were capable of doing. The same feeling of tragedy can be seen in the way we talk endlessly of change but in which thanks to our own inability to agree on how to progress, what the end result should be, we are left, generation after generation, son after father, daughter after mother, asking with an air of damning frustration in the voice the loaded question, Where’s The Revolution?
As Glasgow’s Jack Henderson returns to the forefront of the music lover’s attention, the sense of inventiveness is paramount, a lesson to us all not to wait for the revolution to appear magically out of thin air, but to add your own dynamic to the eventual, the hopeful, the required day when the question will not be where or when, but how far are we willing to take it.
Revolutions come in different sizes and aspects, and it is the personal insight that we seek, that of pushing our own individuality and skill to a greater height that we should pursue before insisting that the world follows our lead. For Jack Henderson, that pursuing of truth comes in the form of demolishing the limitations we work so hard to endure and seeing the course of his new album be one of strict openness to being his own master in the studio.
The solo pursuit is noble, nobody truly knows who they are unless they have spent a lengthy period of time alone, and in the execution of the revolution, and across cover songs and ingenious tracks such as the opener Jesus and Jezebel, Hey Batman, the excellent Nobody Gets Hurt and Don’t Drink The Water, the first salvo of guns operated by an inquisitive, thinking mind, are fired, aimed directly at the hearts of those who would ensure we all remain docile, insignificant and amused by parlour tricks and the ever growing influence of television and social media.
Where’s The Revolution is an album that is not for the faint at heart, but for the spirited, for the ones ready to add their voice to the growing cacophony that needs to be understood and claimed for the greater good. This is no Faustian pact, it is a straight up offer, the world can be better than this if, like Jack Henderson, you speak up for what is right.
Jack Henderson releases Where’s The Revolution on October 2nd via Fretstore Records.
Ian D. Hall