Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

It’s a good day in the soul when you come across a sound that you should have been intimately aware of from the beginning, but which offers a wide-ranging scope of enjoyment and perspective; and the opportunity to speak wholesomely without previous bias or prejudice.

The soul requires nourishment, it needs to be fed the new environment on a regular basis, and art is the main deliverer of such an argument, the pulse of excitement that grows from the first beat and lives up to the crescendo that awaits the senses down the line. This nourishment is heightened the older you get, as a novice listener you can be forgiven for believing that the new is all yours, it speaks directly only to the subscribed and the intensity of hormones; and yet, as is shown in the impressive Doris Brendel’s and Lee Dunham’s 2023 album Pigs Might Fly, such a deep and profoundly cool response is the only answer to a record that truly hits the spot, the moment of reveal and renewal of interest in the genres of the Progressive and the elemental rock.

An album of innovation that comes from the quarters of the pair at hand and the intelligence of one of the finest exponents of the craft, the unmistakable finger on the pulse in the form of John Mitchell. The pedigree of such addition in the form of adding another layer of texture of human beauty to the proceedings only frames the music in such a way that it is impossible to ignore.

Across epics such as Fight Fire With Fire, Better The Devil You Know, Truth Needs No Colours, the unbelievably cool Rorschachump, Ghost, and the sensational album title track, the innovation is seismic, it encompasses the alternative, the progressive, the pomp of rock, the sweetness of the blues, and the drama of the Celtic invention…so much so that the intelligence on offer is overwhelming, the sensuality of lyrical prose that would not be out of place amongst the finest of albums that Prog and Rock have created in the last 30 years.

Pigs Might Fly is enormous. Put away any pre-conceived ideas of neglect, of passing by, take in the future of admiring the ones that offer a viewpoint that digs deep beneath the skin and takes root in the soul. Pigs Might Fly, but intelligent music soars high.

Ian D. Hall