Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Whatever makes you feel passion, it is possible that you are Seeing Red.

There is a melancholic feeling that is understandable to all, even those that decry it, putting it down to self-indulgence, insisting it is a decadence, an unrestraint of emotions; to these we should ignore for they have forgotten what it means to feel, to hold love, to embrace pity, to acknowledge the luxury that is an demonstrative response to being human and all its misery and pleasures in equal measure.

There is sadness and delight to be found in the new release from Seeing Red, and whilst the first disc is one that the fans will be aware of from its previous reissue, it is in the added bonus, the extra glee that comes from hearing the band live from 1991’s night in Edzell, that makes this double release a sense of heroic bliss, and the sadness of memory which give clarification on just how superb and how missed the band, and especially Angie Townsend are

Keep The Fire Burning/Edzell could be seen as a love letter from the past, more than just a reintroduction, it is an intense billet-doux, a proclamation intended to be an outpouring, an iteration, of affection for what has gone, but also what has remained.

The two recordings, one remastered by the band’s Steve Brown, the other played out to the sound of good times and fierce belief at the US Naval Base in Edzell complement each other in such a way that they relay a fondness for a time long since gone, bit to which memory keeps fresh, which frames just how intricately cool the band were; the melancholy of what might have been.

From that crucial beginning in 1987, the importance of the Progressive drama is not to be understated but celebrated, and it is in Edzell and tracks such as Playing The Game, Little People, Take Me On, Heartland, Had It Your Way, East To West, Trouble Again, and the meaty finish in Keep The Fire Burning and One Heart Out Of Time, what makes you see red is joy returned, of an elation in delight.

A terrific reminder of what Seeing Red bought to the Progressive scene, of what they still offer thirty years on, unbound, untethered, just simply a thrill.

Ian D. Hall