Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

The old ways are never gone, the initial love at first senses drawn are on no account ever forgotten, for after all the depth of feeling created by the first encounter are always there in the back of the mind, and are the ones that give rise to emotional, and perhaps spiritual, response.

However, we must evolve, out tastes change, our outlook begins to differ as we open those precious senses to other possibilities of expression, and as we grow with that love, so we must, by default or out of fidelity, appreciate that the object of our affection, has other things to say, and unfamiliar ways in which to communicate them.

The song has changed, the tune has altered, yet underneath the strangeness of appearance, lays a new demonstration of beauty for The Fratellis, and in their latest release, Half Drunk Under A Full Moon, the sense of storytelling remains, but it one tempered by Time, almost filled with melancholic regret and yet filled with pathos and substance. The communication of expression has moved almost 180 degrees from the early days of Costello Music, the almost incessantly catchy tracks that dominated the airwaves and sports arenas of the first few albums have now been replaced by tracks of reflection, sincere in their appearance of being fully matured and representing a new belief for the band.

Across tracks such as Lay Your Body Down, The Last Songbird, Strangers In The Street, the superb Six Days In June and the album title track of Half Drunk Under A Full Moon, the threesome engage with the listener that perhaps would have been unthinkable a decade ago, but which nonetheless speaks volumes of how much they have progressed as an entity rather than having gone their separate ways and getting lost in the maelstrom of empty promises and lack of togetherness.

Half Drunk Under A Full Moon, a poetic delight, played with such a depth of feeling, performed with a mind on the future, rather than the larkish days of old; an album for those who have grown with the band, for they will surely appreciate the new direction and sense of steadfast occupancy. 

Ian D. Hall