Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
The deep belly of the blues always manages to find its way beneath the armour plating many put up to deflect its influence. The placing of that somewhat heroic but ultimately flawed shield is wasted though as quality always finds a pore, a chink in the armour, in which to erode away the feeling of the uncertain and suspicious.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Blues seems to bring out the very best in musicians, it also seems to the one genre in which many a talented artist seems comfortable in letting themselves go and placing themselves in the multitude of songs from its illustrious past. Jazz constantly re-invents itself, Progressive Rock is so utterly unique, Heavy Metal only really covered by the completely dedicated and pop, at times seems to let anything go, Blues however appeals in its homage to the past.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9½ /10
The third album by The Riotous Brothers, The Tree, starts like a feeling of pure exhilaration and ends up with you wanting to weep for all the right reasons and take each song to your heart. If an album can really take you to places that you cannot go to in your physical life then this is the same sensation you might get when you read Wuthering Heights, Far from The Madding Crowd, Moby Dick or Edward Rutherford’s Sarum for the first time in the quiet slumber of deep forest surrounded by the dying embers of a perfect summer’s day.