Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
Never Stop…for the moment you do you run the risk of people believing you have become an irrelevance, you become forgotten, only finding your name being mentioned in passing in a popular evening gameshow or recalled as the music for an arthouse film’s midway credits.
Never Stop…is an instruction that saves your artistic vision, as well as your belief in motion, and one to whom the souls behind The Brand New Heavies expand upon and thrive within as their huge single discography finds the greatest hits repackaged and offering a new vision of arguably one the all-time exponents of the Acid Jazz scene, and in Never Stop – The Best Of The Brand New Heavies that sense of importance, of time bubbling away, always on hand for the celebration of renewal like a champagne bottle ready to let rip and let its effervescent juices soak all who stand underneath its shaken shower.
A double album, one of hits, one encompassing remixes and re-evaluation, and even for the novice there is much to take from the band’s signature beat and the appeal in which the singles are unveiled are enough to stir intrigue and love for the music.
As songs such as Don’t Let It Go To Your Head, Dream On Dreamer, Midnight At The Oasis, You Are The Universe, the reading of the hauntingly beautiful You’ve Got A Friend, Apparently Nothing, Brother Sister, Mind Trips, and the phenomenal track which bares the album’s intent, Never Stop, power through with an ease of enjoyment; there is no awkwardness, no stuttering introduction as the listener sizes up what comes their way offering cool and groove, this is a sparkling defence of a genre ahead of its time and perfectly adept at making anyone smile in its company.
Thirty-five years on from their first single release, the sound remains fresh and inviting, and for all the musicians that have passed through the ranks over the period, the ethos has never wavered from the vision and desire that came from its founders Simon Bartholomew, Andrew Levy and Jason Kincaid, and it is a vision that is sincere, glorious, and full of definition.
Ian D. Hall