Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
The opportunity to be immersed by nature as we take a break from the demands of the city is a powerful one; we can be stood within the shadows of New Street Station as trains run grimly underground, the footprint of Liverpool’s Three Graces that overlook the multitude as they think of bills, debits, and debts, or even stuck inside an office working during the hours of daylight and never having the opportunity to see a field in full bloom…it is almost Orwellian, almost Kafkaesque, and yet it is a nightmare that we have become accustomed to as we neglect the belief that Wildflowers are just as important a sight to the soul than the weight of greed displayed by covering over every spare piece of land in the race to make the most of acquisition.
For Warwickshire’s WLDFLWRS, Katherine Abbott, Jack Blackman, Wes Flinch, Chris Quirk, and Jono Wright, the sense of Americana style and the AOR influence is suited to the Midlands band’s cause and as their new six-strong E.P., Wildflowers reaches out and takes the listener on a trip that offers the sense of the British pastoral entwined with the respective genres that gave their souls in entertainment and illumination a generation of music lovers.
The five musicians, equally proficient, bring a full-blown essence to the fore, and as a group they are going to surely fight for the pinnacle of expression; and as each track flows, so that right will assert itself even more.
With the aid of Adam Barry, James Maguire, and Rob Spalton on a couple of tracks, the grounding and prospect of the E.P. soars, and as Best Company, MXD MSSG, Waiting On You, the superb Heavy Weather, Sky/Ground, and the title track of Wildflowers weave subtly with artistic intent, so the combination of the individual into a cohesive unit is one that may take some by surprise but for the seasoned music lover will be seen as the building blocks of future groundbreaking fruition.
We may live mostly in a concrete world surrounded by all the material efforts that can be purchased, but it is to the scene of wildflowers in bloom that give us a reason to see that life flourishes in the free, in seeing glorious colour in the hope of sunshine or the beautiful melancholy of rain; and to that it requires a soundtrack, and WLDFLWRS supply that with abundance.
Ian D. Hall