Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

It is a modern phrase designed to kick start our physical appetite for change, a symbolic gesture of how at some point in our development we reach a crossroads, a place where we are given no choice, no alternative but to move forward and take a greater degree of responsibility for the events that surround us, and have it shown to us as though it is a carnival of experience that we our glad to accept, but which in truth is a double edged sword, a reminder of a side of adult hood we are never truly prepared for.

“Welcome To The Rest Of Your Life”, a statement deployed and one to which one of Sheffield’s Indie kings have utilised to maximum effect as they return to the outside world, and despite Time having peeled away the layers of youthful song, what finds itself urgently coming to the surface is one of understanding of a different period in life, not growing up, but a knowledge of eventful territory gained, and by reemerging from the imposed shadows that have enveloped us all, that phrase so often used, becomes a signal that we do not have leave all that we were behind, but we must accept the baggage to come.

Love and loss, strength of purpose, the observation of what may have been left uncovered had it not been for life’s perpetual reveal of change, this is Little Man Tate having never misplaced what made them so intriguing when they burst on to the scene alongside other luminaries of the time, such as The Artic Monkeys and Reverend And The Makers.

Across tracks such as Undercover Letters, You Rub Me Up The Wrong Way, Kiss And Just Be Friends, the excellent Down In The Gutter, and We Can Be The Gossip, Little Man Tate accept and insist that Time is the ultimate observer, the chief witness to all we do, and one that plays its own part, whether through the luxury of sarcasm or the sincerity of brutal dullness, Welcome To The Rest Of Your Life is a pleasure of being alive.

Little Man Tate’s Welcome To The Rest Of Your Life is out now.

Ian D. Hall