Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Loss affords us the introspection to see our time through the eyes of Ghosts, the memories that linger in the mind and offer us a kind of salvation so that we might reflect on who truly mattered in our lives, and their message to us across the boundaries of time.
The thing is we are ghosts ourselves, we haunt a present that is filled often with the meaningless and the damaged as much as the noteworthy and the significant, and it is our duty to cut a swathe through one and offer the generations to come a more evened existence so that when we have passed our moment on Earth we can rely like a signal to all who listen our own hopefully impressive story.
Too many are either not afforded the opportunity to leave a physical trace or remain for others to take their signal onwards, or refuse to do so, but evidence of afterlife depends on what we leave behind, what our minds can bring into the world and leave as evidence that the human race is one of constant surprise, of brilliance, a mark of endeavour; and to constantly continue on with the narrative is a statement of intent, one that Steve Dawson does with clarity, produces with appreciation…for this is the proof of creation, that we leave our souls behind for others to use as inspiration.
Steve Dawson is a magician of the lyrical wand and the incantation of the music, and his sixth studio album, Ghosts, what the soul unlocks is one of grace and wonder, and across tracks such as Oh California, Sooner Than Expected, It Was A Mistake, A Mile South Of Town and I Am Glad To Be Alive, what transpires is a cool drama set against a montage of memories captured by a tender heart; one unafraid of making others understand that the world is often cruel, that the hard truth of existence is that only some of what we impart will be nurtured, the rest simply forgotten by all except the worthy and the realists.
It is the message of hope that sees the album soar, and with a backing band and vocal harmonies that includes luminaries such as Gerald Dowd, John Abbey, Nora O’ Connor, Ingrid Graudins, Diane Christiansen, Alton Smith, Chris Greene, John Moore, and Brian Wilkie, Ghosts is to be seen as an album of pure velocity, of memory pushing trust in the future.
An impassioned recording, a touching, and lasting piece of truth on display and surrounded by the living in all its glory.
Ian D. Hall