Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

To be as uncompromising as you can be in a world that dictates subservience is an act of rebellion against a state that perceives a War Without Witness as power’s greatest achievement; it is a non-negotiable undertaking that we must fight power by always bearing witness, we must observe and report, never once being marginalised by those with agendas that seek the continued stance of servility.

We seek the same in art, if we are being truthful, to be taken to a place where what is being presented hits the soul, the mind, and between our eyes with powerful shock and awe, a presence in which what is being driven by distinction, is also being delivered out of truth, authentic, certified and endorsed by empathy and humanity.

For Matthew Robb, War Without Witness signifies the beginning of a third album of original tracks that are gritty, unflinching in their belief, and willing to stand alone if needs be as the world walks away from doing the right thing and instead embracing the coarse and rough sentiment of eternal bondage.

Aided in this fight against monotony of spirit by Ekki Maas, Wolfgang Proppe, Marcus Rieck, Tobias Hoffman, and recorded at Musikkollektive Cologne, Matthew Robb leaves no stone unturned, or half measures produced, in the pursuit of painting a landscape of unflappable observation, whether it is in realisation of the deeply personal, or in the resolution of bringing the world in sharper focus.

Across tracks such as Tell Me Brother, Special Rider, Numbers, the excellent Ode To Consequentialism, Don’t Lie To Me and the album’s title track, War Without Witness, beauty and sincerity, not always mutual, or indeed agreeable, bedfellows, are on this occasion in full agreement on the narrative, on the touching of war, devastation, ignorance, perceived futility, and how we are becoming more out of tune with it all as long as we are kept happy by our own unrealistic demands.

An unforgettable album deeply entrenched in the call to witness without prejudice, an album that assures the connection we seek, but warns all that it comes at a cost, that a War Without Witness is the way in which government seek to control their own sequence of events, and it is up to us to defy it one beating heart at a time.

Matthew Robb’s War Without Witness is out now.

Ian D. Hall