Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Songs of love, refrains of affection, and the melody that veers between a comic Jacques Brel and a sombre Noel Coward, a mixture of perfect timing and witty panache…arguably there is no one quite like Neil Hannon, and no name like The Divine Comedy in which to feel the enjoyment of the national love of words, of striking the balance between the entertaining observation and the delicate, often precisely subtle piercing that comes from the sharpened, easy on the ears humour.

A Charmed Life, there can be no arguing with the self-assessment of the title, and even in the realm of a ‘best of’ which is usually the preserve of the artist framing their own perception and essence, it is almost impossible to find fault with the selection made by Neil Hannon for this third example of what constitutes the highest degree of desirable songs in which to lose time sublimely within.

With 30 plus years of performing and recording history behind Mr. Hannon and The Divine Comedy this latest collection of assorted tracks is not so much a fanfare for the muse, but a hard fought, glittering parade, filled with ticker tape as far as the eye can see for one who has enjoyed the grace of a charmed life, and whilst there is an obvious song or two that seems to have been misplaced from the final package, the tracks that make up the album are ones that truly glorify the master’s work.

With tracks such as Norman and Norma, Something For The Weekend, At The Indie Disco, Come Home Billy Bird, Your Daddy’s Car, Absent Friends, The Certainty Of Chance, a different, modern take on the groovy Generation Sex, and the hugely successful National Express all carrying the weight of time between their firmly moulded musical muscles with honour and deftness of wit.

A Charmed Life is what we could all hope for, but it is to the mutual friend, the lyricist to whom undoubtedly Coward, Brel, and the comic muse himself, Oscar Wilde, would nod in approval and clasp his hand warmly, to whom has made the best of living in the moment, and for all time. A warranted ‘best of’, The Divine Comedy is the baroque art in which requires that special place in the listener’s heart, one of acceptance, one of glory, one of beauty.

Ian D. Hall