Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Those tunes we hear at the start of June make our summers memorable, those melodies and refrains we feel dig beneath the surface of post new year’s ice and snow are the backdrop to the time ahead, but the final month of the year, those songs we hear that saturate the airwaves with their association of overspending, the failure of a system propped up by casual bonhomie as we dive in and out of shops armed to the teeth with regret and credit cards, those are the jingles that signal the end, that dictate how we view the year as a whole.

Whilst there is nothing wrong with the likes of Slade puncturing the air with seasonal joviality, December is not, and should never be, about recycled excess, of failing to understand that a moment’s unhappiness about not living up to the expectation of others and the dent on the heart and mind when you continue to brood over it, and instead it should be about memory, of thanks, of the goodbyes we have had to endure, of the beauty that shows itself in the drop of snow on a British lawn, of the gentleness of expression captured in feeling the warmth of love found in the melody and ballad of December Songs from a different perspective.  

Intimacy, a notion we have perhaps forgotten at the expense of grandeur, and yet if we seek it out, if we find artists such as The Little Unsaid and listen to his brand-new album, December Songs, we might begin to find the comfort that an end of year affords us, one of prosperity of spirit, of the wealth of beauty, rather than the affluence of avarice and the influence of want.

Intimacy, the crowning prospect of any human belief, and in tracks such as Fine World (When You Can Look It In The Eye), Sacred Space, Family Tree, In The Bleak Midwinter, and 5 am Waltz, the sense of closeness, the relationship between music and the time of year is more acute in the soul than at any other period in a person’s life.

December Songs is John Elliott (The Little Unsaid) throughout, unabashed, thoughtful, installing confidence in the listener, ingratiating kindness and tenderness in the belief he is exuding; and one that is captured with idealism and dreamlike cool in this representative of a season we should take more care of to honour.

The Little Unsaid’s December Songs is out now.

Ian D. Hall