Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

What lays beyond the outer reaches could be considered sanctuary, but it is only in The Far North that truth reveals the extent of Songs For Gentle Souls and those that wish to see them succeed.

From the ashes of The Fireflys, Lee Wylding has stepped out of the embers and taken on the solo persona of The Far North, a name, a title, a declaration spoken as to the hardiness and world wise effect that the album has on the listener as the music and the soul of the performer combine with ease, sensitivity and fierce tradition.

Songs For Gentle Souls brings tracks together such as This House Is Ours, When We Were Young, Compass Pointing, North Grace, and 1994, and the lyrics weaved with purpose throughout are driven as though the soul understands it is driving a delicate machine, but also one that can pay tribute to those who wait in the stands as the engines purr, willing the machine to take on the dogmatic tribulations and turncoats thrown at them by life.

Produced by Nigel Stonier, the album takes on the glare of the presumed concept, whilst each track is individual as Lee Wylding, it must be noted that to listen to recording as if you were allowing your player of choice to choose at random the ideas and experiences behind them, would do damage to the drama and belief that unfolds.

Life may well be a series of reflections that you can focus in on one memory at a time, but you have to admit that they dare more as a statement when seen in the context of a full and beautiful existence; pain, suffering, joy, freedom, regret, release, all these emotions are with an album’s full length stride, and Lee Wylding, The Far North, exemplifies this with calm, aristocratic persuasion and means 

Songs For Gentle Souls captures the belief that even under the tight, taut skin of a beast, lays the foundations of greatness to which music moderates and leaves a kindness where once there was darkness. Exceptionally enlightening.

Ian D. Hall