Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Despite crows being associated with the idea of protection, it is difficult for the wary to see them as anything as the harbinger of sorrow and ill omens, they, and their feathered cousins, are in the background of every graveyard scene, their voices sung not in admiration or compliment, but in forewarning, the portent of the sinister times and possible death.

Perhaps though, rather than steering clear of the song of crow, we instead should honour them by paying closer attention to the sound rather than what our perceived intentions are, for the music that such bird make should insist to us that we live In Praise Of Crows rather than demonising them.

As man was made to mourn…so humanity is made to honour the voice of another human being with a tale to tell, and for Bob Leslie, In Praise Of Crows comes with more than a song in the heart, it arrives with joy, that often underrated feeling of contentment that banishes the darkness of the grave to come, and instead sets the scene of breathing in the fresh air of the country, of being alive and having the soul to be empathic to other’s dilemmas and fears.

In his latest album, Bob Leslie plays with both humour and the seriousness of life, but does so without ever giving into the temptation of melancholy, he takes that admiration of both senses and produces tracks such as the superb opener Don’t Start The Revolution In The Morning, in which the narrator speaks with forthright persuasion of his reluctance to rise with the tide of rebellion due to his love and comfort of his bed before two in the afternoon, the song to which applies to people when confronted with amour in My Foolish Heart, Lest We Forget, the excellent song of warning and arguing against indifference to all matters in Sittin’ In The Belly Of The Whale, and Next Best Bed, and he does so with that purest of belief, that he wants to entertain as well as have his voice heard.

It is important, indeed vital, that if we are to transform society for the better, that we allow and encourage all to have their say, regardless of what form of artistic expression it may take. To believe that all anyone can offer is the chatter of the crow is to make mockery of the intelligence of the bird…for Who begat Crow in the first place but humankind as they sought out omens of ill and love.

Ian D. Hall