Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Inspiration often comes from the sustained darkest moments we endure in life and not from the vagarious of fleeting joy and moments of stolen passion we are granted by fate or the gods. The love song is a by-product of regret and jealousy, the tempered lines of illumination are driven by having suffered and not wanting others to fall into the same sense of despair, and the exuberant declaration of peace that is roundly welcomed with flashes of over-the-top behaviour, are born out the memory that the innocent were amongst those that will not see another dawn smile upon them.
There is Always Something to remind us of how inspiration whispered in our ear, and we must acknowledge that the Muse and the moment are the same spirit, what the Muse seizes with one hand, it undoubtedly offers with the other; and for the three musicians that inhabit the human conscious of UV-TV, Rose Vastola, Ian Bernacett and Ian Rose, the Muse has considered long and hard, has contemplated the exact message it wants them to hear, and as the beautifully crafted and rendered third album plays out, Always Something becomes a deliberate persuasion, the lyrics are direct, the music is pop at its most encouraging; and it is the dichotomy of lyrical thought and pop inducing melody that brings the strength of each track together.
Through landscapes and power pop dream, songs such as Wildflower, Distant Lullaby, Plume, I Don’t Mind, Superbound, the finale of Holland Sunday, and the album title track, Always Something, UV-TV have developed a hard-edge sound with soft intricate tones guiding each song past the point where the enforced isolation of 2020 is no longer a time to regret, but to view the inspiration as conducting the pace and reveal of the future.
An album that was arguably built around the anxiety of Time, but which has in the end unveiled the cathartic blessing in which we must all understand makes us human. Always Something because life would be a foolish pursuit if we embraced nothing at all.
UV-TV release Always Something on May 28th via Papercup Music.
Ian D. Hall