Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
The words of the Understudy are forever poised to be spoken, and if we dare allow someone else to declare our own intentions, their voice, our sentence and our version of the truth, then we deserve to never be the main player in the telling of our own story.
The cue line, as one of Scotland’s foremost lyric writers and poets once observed, is the last act, perhaps not of the prompt, but of the moment to realise just how important it is to never allow anyone to speak for us, for they will invariably, perhaps maliciously, maybe out of plain ignorance, leave out segments, miss a key phrase, stumble over a footnote and explanation, because that is human nature; and to underestimate just how good, how perfect the understudy can be is to throw caution to the wind, it is the act of replacement ready and willing to deliver the sentence.
To declare an artist’s work as their greatest when their entire back catalogue has been one of deep satisfaction and robust joy is filled with pitfalls, emotionally falling into the trap of never entertaining anything but your own dogged opinion, and yet we still strive to entertain notions and lists, when truly all we need to do is sit back and feel the energy of the performance wash over us, breathe in the deep beauty to be found, and in Boo Hewerdine’s latest album, Understudy, the lines sang, the words, expressed, the music and emotion felt are enough to understand that there is no alternate, no substitute waiting in the wings; this is all an unrestrained and passionate response to the way of the world in our times.
Boo Hewerdine is a music renaissance man, the mind of an undeterred explorer, a map maker with notes and hymn like precision marked, and to one who has no need of the understudy himself, but who with grace and fortune always finds ways to bring others to the fore; and it is in grace that tracks such as Men Without A War, Useful, Dream Within A Dream, perhaps one of the most entertaining songs so far of 2022 – the excellent Euston Station, The Day I Fell In Love With The World and Ancestors are greeted by the listener as one greets an old friend, with an embrace so deep and true that nobody could ever think that they were replaceable in the hearts of those with purpose and a soul.
An album which delivers its sentence and judgement with sound perfection, Boo Hewerdine’s Understudy is a permanent fixture.
Boo Hewerdine releases Understudy on May 27th via Reveal Records.
Ian D. Hall