Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
To feel the thrill of being Out On Bail is an emotion that many of us will hopefully never have to experience. However, it is a question of what we would set out to achieve whilst the powers that be discuss and debate our fate, would we go all out and aim for prosperity of the infamous action, or would we silently acknowledge the meekness we feel building up in our stomachs, would we act to have our voice heard, or surrender to the inevitable failing spirit?
Cut and run or stand and fight with the sound of thunderous drums, seething electric guitars, and a voice that understands that sometimes you have to play dirty if you want to survive, if you want the powers that be to quake in their boots as they contemplate life with you on the outside taking the proverbial leak inside their cosy tent.
It is in the Warrior Soul that we find just how good it is to be Out On Bail, how the system can be manipulated to give us exactly the freedom we wish to cherish can be attained; all we need is to sing louder, and with a greater heart so that in the end the chains break apart, and those in power, those that demand ever greater subservience, soon feel their bones shatter under the weight of aggression and fine music that the majority have at their disposal.
This is no hopeful course of action, it is a demand, an ultimatum, and one such as taken up by the legendary Warrior Soul and its vocalist Kory Clarke in their dynamic new album, Out On Bail.
Across tracks such as the openers We’re Alive, One More For The Road, and through roaring specimens of the controversial rock epics such as Out On Bail, YoYo, and the ever prophetic, almost constantly foretelling End Of The World, Warrior Soul dig deep and growls down the listener’s ear that they have to do more than survive, more than appear to be rebelling, they need to have the vision, the temerity, the deafening sense of antagonism to insist that being out on bail is only temporary, the end result is, for those that lock us in chains, is destruction.
A chest beating romp, an act of stern rebuke, all wrapped up in the barbed wire effect of rebellion and impressive rock. Where would we be if out on bail, hopefully turning the town red and the faces of those who incarcerated us a deep and flushing crimson.
Warrior Soul release Out On Bail on March 4th via Livewire/ Cargo Records UK.
Ian D. Hall