Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

To feel empathy, to understand compassion when you approach art is to know at some point you must have had your heart broken. There in the sweet surrender of the Muse’s voice that sings to you, in amongst the remains of the first breakdown the soul ever suffered, the memory lingers and it is to those sirens of expressions, the sirens who are the Keepers Of The Sea who set the seal on our willingness to feel at all times and give others the opportunity to also be charmed by the sound of waves and song.

Not only does Helen Maw expertly weave this willingness to produce a narrative of openness to the delight of the listener, she also conjures up the belief of sadness, the roaming heartbreak from within, bringing the custodian to attention and the drama, the elegance of the song turning at all times, and the fascination seeing the light of one of the most intensely striking images that is captured on the Merseyside coastline, that of the Antony Gormley created Iron Men.

We think of the Muse moreover as being of flesh and bone, a figure capable of speech, of thought and process, yet perhaps we should be looking at the more dynamic, unsung heroes which pose no physical questions but all the same speak volumes about our current relationship with the world, with the space we are granted within it.

Originally written for the Liverpool Acoustic songwriting competition, Helen Maw’s Keepers Of The Sea is that recognition of the inspiration derived from observing the landscape, not listening to the sea and the sirens who keep count of the souls they swiftly capture, but instead to those objects, the substances and the purposes of life which speak no evil, but instead bring joy in their silence.

A wonderfully dramatic single, one of persuasion and beauty. Helen Maw settles the storm with a sound that frames deliberate stimulation.

Ian D. Hall