Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
How we respond to world events is not just a matter for the individual, it is the collective whole that needs to come together and fight the evil that lives within the hearts of political psychopaths and desperate antisocial deviance; the measure of refusing to aid another in their hour of need, whether it is those who suffer primarily or by association, the mothers, the loved ones, the children caught between not understanding and feeling the rage of despair for the first time, this is how we are judged, how we are assessed, and pronounced guilty if we sit back and do nothing when the cry goes out “Isn’t Anybody Coming?”
We live in age of mass media involvement, and as such we cannot avoid the question of relief in the field of connection, we must be seen to take a role, not just gossip over the morning tea round and pay platitudes whilst suggestion a peace that will not last, that will be taken advantage of further down the line.
No matter how small, the response is worth it, whatever you can say make it count for something more than the wringing of hands and small talk, and the larger the voice, the more people you will reach as you make your position and feelings clear.
Isn’t Anybody Coming?, the answer should always be, in any form, yes! It doesn’t always happen, too often we may feel as though our voice will only be an hinderance, and yet speak we must, and as Peggy James’ new single resonates deeply within the soul of the listener, so the truth of our own feeling must win out. Admittedly we cannot throw ourselves into every cause, burn out, exhaustion all play their part to negate responsibility, but as Ms. James powerful insight and imploring aural insistence shows in her latest single, we must all answer the call to the best of our ability.
The song is a mixture of tender contribution and deep seated anger at a world that constantly, and unforgivably, turns their eyes away from actions and suffering caused by those with a corrupted sense of power in their mind; regardless of whether it has been in the name of Empire, in the action of hate, of wishing to subdue and humiliate, or in the disgrace and stain of eradication, we are all as guilty as we are sufferers of abandonment.
War, especially one without honour in the side of the predator, is always raging, and one that we have become more acutely aware of in recent months as the shock of a reckless and dishonourable man could bring a continent to its knees. Peggy James speaks to our soul to resist and rise up, not in a sense of propaganda, but in the name of humanity, of reaching out and asking us to open our hearts to those who are in dire need of a hand.
A single that offers resilience and asks for hope, one that of course we should not to have understand being sung anywhere in the world, but which we must now fight to get heard so that others will not have to ever ask again. Isn’t Anybody Coming? may be a single that was not on the agenda, but it resonates with a large beating heart in its release. Peggy James strikes home with absolute compassion.
Ian D. Hall