Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Happiness is a state of mind, in much the same way that others urge others to smile more and frown less, perhaps out of concern, more likely out of control, to see the world as a place where all you can do is be happy is to arguably lower one’s guard, to feel secure when the truth is at any given moment life can give way to grief, to feel the kind of syndrome where it causes one to ponder that the measure of survival like any creature has been replaced with unnatural continual contentment.

Such is life that you can be So Happy It Hurts, but perhaps the music is so good that in the end you cannot but help feel the beat in your soul and that causes the finer moment of ecstatic bliss.

Pushing the state of mind to the point where it becomes painful is an illusion of the self, but art can take you naturally close to a place of pleasure, but it should also make you question, interrogate your feelings, internally demand how the artist themselves is being painted whilst you take time out to focus on a snapshot of their life.

For legendary Canadian rocker Bryan Adams, So Happy It Hurts arguably comes from a place where to feel the sun on the skin and to be alive is a major point of view, after all the last couple of years have taken their toll on the psyche of all, least of those who have succumbed to the illness making headlines around the world. Not that Mr, Adams is any different to millions of others, but he is able to place trust in his own vision, to share it without shame or rancour, and is erudite, cultured, enough to open his heart and his song writing mind to display his emotions to the point where the audience trusts implicitly his mood, his emotions, his belief in his own happiness.

Across tracks such as the album title track, So Happy It Hurts, co-written with the superb Gretchen Peters, You Lift Me Up, I Ain’t Worth Shit Without You, Just Like Me, Just Like You, These Are The Moments That Make Up My Life, and I’ve Been Looking For You, what transpires is a melody of honesty, the artist known it is impossible to be content every minute of every day, the human mind is not designed to feel the effects of the Angel man, but it is possible to be truthful, to allow the sorrow, the sadness and the pain to give life its downs and therefore making the highs, the beauty of life, so much more worth the joy.

An album that sits comfortably in Bryan Adams’ distinguished catalogue,  So Happy It Hurts, so happy to have it in the listeners’ lives.

Ian D. Hall