Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
The sight of Red Skies as we look to the horizon inspires and can also leave us daunted by the spectacle of colour, we see patterns in the scene, we marvel at its intensity, we remember rhymes of childhood driven to think of the coming weather, and the phenomenon also stirs up feelings of another time, of distant thunders and noise that rained down destruction on the world in a time of despair and hate; it is to those images, of sublime beauty that inspires artist, to the knowledge that red skies can also be created by human ills, that we seek to explain with heartfelt peace in our soul.
In the hands of David Nixon’s Navigation, the delight of the scene painted with illustrative powers of a sensational song writer is full of confidence, a physical conductor that sees the horizon and pinpoints with extreme accuracy the difference between each vibrant colour, and in his observations that encapsulate the new album, Red Skies, a sense of triumph rejoined is palpable and profoundly exciting.
Those colourful skies, vibrating against the shades of grey and blue arguably sum up the feelings of change, of an alteration in the musical landscape that the city of Liverpool and the wider world faced as the post easy pop and snarling punk of the 60s and 70s was replaced by a synthetic groove of 1980s regret and instant accessibility to a sound exemplified by the auspicious eye of Jon Lawton of Crosstown Studios and with the fantastic understanding created by David Nixon stepping forward and having the time of his life actually being the vocal, and the focal point of a terrific audio experience.
Through tracks such as Hand In Hand, DIY Man, Hearts Beat In Time, If Not For That Day, and Turn Off The Dark, David Nixon, alongside Chris Howard, Tony Peers, Chris Bridges, Adam Letman, Miceál Sammon, and Jon Lawton also providing guitar and bass throughout, the sound is one that combines emotion with reminisce and elicit memory, of that elusive fleeting belief of love, and identity that we must own in full and without the effects of self-oblivion.
Red Skies is assured to be seen as David Nixon’s finest work yet to date, one of creative poise and principle, one crowned in faith and conviction.
Ian D. Hall