Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
One of the issues of unconditional love is knowing that if you don’t retain some semblance of identity, you could find yourself submerged, engulfed by the personality of the other; it is a fundamental understanding that people think of as part of their own life story, the sentence driven in a scream of independence, “Loving You Is Killing Me”.
The return of the 90’s pop pioneers, My Life Story, is a welcome reminder of what perhaps the public have missed in the decades since their debut album thrilled the music lovers of the period, and in Loving You Is Killing Me the sense of challenges met in themes such as empathy, coercive behaviour, naturism, and the conceited and possible pessimism of others in their projection of emotions on to your being, are one of glory and passion to which the band have always illustrated with enormous fury.
Five years after their World Citizen recording, and for only the second time since 2000, My Life Story once again not only capture the zeitgeist of time, but they unveil it for the massed ranks of music lovers who will take it to their heart and seize the inspiration that they feel thundering through their veins, pushing the heart and mind to grasp the opportunity of reflection and deed as we wallow in the midst of personal downfall and ferocious grief.
As the album insists, this is no time for melancholy, and despite the undertow of pessimism some night perceive as they strike boldly into the album’s venture, what there is a pleasure of confidence and assurance overwhelmingly being sought, and as tracks such as Running Out of Heartbeats, Numb Numb Numb, Tits & Attitude, Identity Crisis and Wasted all combine their abundant riches, so My Life Story once again picks up from where it left off; and it is a place of treasures, an encounter that is an autobiographical statement of intent.
My Life Story will release Loving You Is Killing Me on February 9th via Exilophone Records/Republic Of Music.
Ian D. Hall