Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
Flying a kite in a thunderstorm is a reckless occupation, only scientists and foolhardy adventurers would see the lightning and relish the challenge…and yet to see the spark of brilliance as the flash explodes, as the possibility of fire framed by the reflection in the eye, that is the moment where holding The Paper Kites might just be the most thrilling occasion a person can behold.
Australia’s vast land is a thought of the exotic, it’s wild, dangerous, unimaginable creatures lay in wait, and you could travel a thousand miles and be consistently overawed by the terrain’s ever changing pulse, and for the music fan, to experience the heat of the city’s sweat and then a world in which you step back in time to a place where the empty Victorian property is full of applauding ghosts and memories that aid the sound and vision of that paper kite in a thunderstorm.
At The Roundhouse is an emotional rollercoaster fuelled by dreams and visualisation, and for the members of The Paper Kites, it is a concept of the enquiring mind that insists on an approach of recording that refuses to be cowed by the modern stifling effect of the sterile shell, and instead, with beating excited heart the band venture inside the forgotten and bring life to an edifice of a building deep in the fields of nowhere.
The dramatic structure of the overall album is bookended by the venue of choice, and the result is one of style, of the pulse of another time influencing the beauty and range that comes through for the entertaining Australian band.
The album itself is one of persuasion succeeded, almost by word of mouth the process is revealed, and if a group of musicians were to be showered with plaudits, then the understanding that the band threw the doors open on the weekends whilst they were there for impromptu gigs is a moment to be applauded.
For Sam Bentley, Christine Lacy, David Powys, Samuel Rasmussen, Josh Bentley, Hannah Cameron, Chris Panousakis and Matt Dixon, the album represents one of the sincerest recordings that the listener is likely to come across in 2023, its earthy resilience, the intimate arrangements, it all comes clear as tracks such as Till The Flame Turns Blue, Marietta, the superb Black and Thunder, June’s Stolen Car, and I Don’t Want to Go That Way, combine to punch through the storm and create a human hurricane of expression that leaves the listener emotionally, and heavily invested.
A firecracker of music, an album that soars as kites are meant to, and one that withstands and grows with determination and drive in the vastness of space that Australia affords.
Ian D. Hall