Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
Always be ready to take a step out of your comfort zone, as an artist, as a listener, it is a sacred duty to your mind and your soul that what you enjoy and practise is only the surface level of your endeavour, you must in effect go punk to stride forward; and if nothing else it will concentrate your thoughts on seeing a larger, more detailed picture evolve before your eyes.
Punk is not all dazzling colours, angry sneers, the tight lip curl espoused as much as for effect on the media as it is for the crowd to be inspired by, it is a mindset which has more to do with being progressive and fuelling anarchy within the heart, and whilst we are not talking about three chord smashes, guitars threatened with extinction, to be punk is to prove that you can take a piece of art and give it an edge that you have not shown before to the public, and perhaps to yourself.
A Punk disposition, but played with a sympathetic sound, a drama that has the electronic undercurrent, a revolution perhaps but one where the aim is not the guillotine but the acerbity and derision in which to drive home your point, satire of the situation…arguably the sophisticated truth of Punk.
So, it is for Cary Balsano and his latest single Not Like Sheeran, an affair with the electronica that underpins the track, and with a significant snarl through a smile so wide and almost aphrodisiac like stance that is carried off with drama, with insight, and with the musician’s usual sense of significant sense of style.
It is a single though that will catch the fan unprepared, and for that it must be absolutely applauded, for aiming at the privileged, even in name and association, for how else do we shine a light on the absurd situations we find ourselves in, and by openly declaring our own thoughts we draw a line on what is acceptable, what is a distortion of proportional love.
A single of anger but offered from the heart of an angel, Cary Balsano is taking a stance with a finger on the pulse of the unspoken.
Ian D. Hall