Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
The cooler the story, the harder it is to top it, so rapt could the audience be in the tale that was spoken with elegance and rising temperature that they, as people are found wanting to do, cling to the moment of ecstasy they found with a vice like grip; never believing that that the moment can get higher, that the battery of illumination can allow the light to shine even brighter.

The fire that burns within the Blues/Southern Soul man of Eddie 9V is undaunted and unquenchable, and in his new release of Saratoga, the signature spirit and wit that he has built his growing reputation upon in the modern outlook that many citizens of the United States of America wish to see flourish, is one that builds on each song’s first listen. There is no time to linger in the moment for an eternity, for as Saratoga inhabits the realm of continual progression, the layered joy and rapture that reveals itself is one of eye-opening groove and cool.

Imagine a road trip across America, a dream of millions, from California to New York, and stopping at the Golden Gate Bridge and believing you have reached the apex of life itself, that is point where the continual must rise, the heart must be brave, and the reward for doing so is fruitful, for life, as with art, is meant to be a succession of feelings that draw upon a wealth of observations…and Saratoga supplies that with ardour and bliss.

Across tracks such as Love Moves Slow, Cry Like A River, Wasp Weather, the superb Love You All The Way Down, and the crunching, beautiful statements of Chamber Of Reflection and The Road To Nowhere, the sense of existence, the profound nature of mortality, the dream of just being captured by delight in each passing second, but also understanding the responsibility that comes with the striving drama of belief, the newcomer and the hardened fan will feel each drop pleasure and enormity mined from the guitar protégé and hero.

Saratoga is a dream, it is the beauty outside of time, out of the way from the humdrum and the inconsequential, Eddie 9V rises further, aims higher, and succeeds with honour.

Eddie 9V releases Saratoga on November 22nd via Ruf Records.
Ian D. Hall