Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

A life through a cold mechanical lens; caught on the bright lights of an intrusive camera with no contract to sign or even a say in how your image is used and for what purpose.  Footballers, media representatives, even some that make the notes and songs we hum along to when the mood invariably takes us have an image to protect, but for the ordinary person, the individual on the street casually walking along minding their own business, a million trained eyes are watching, scrutinising and wondering if you are going to commit an act of behaviour so shocking that it might just be on a television programme for mass entertainment at some point.

The album Everyone’s A TV Star Tonight by Billy Kelly is apt for this reason, for there is a sense of disconnection, a worry of epic proportions threaded throughout and played with a smile, a grin that’s infectious and beautifully disarming to the point where the question that forms in the back of the mind comes rushing out like a rocket with a shotgun shoved in a peculiar place to give it even more thrust. The question of does a serious amount of time away from recording songs make you stale or more lively, the chance to witness and enjoy life without having to write about it make you more focused to the details such as the camera eye, the steel glaze and the mirrored lens  above your head a hindrance to your life. No matter the answer to everyone else’s life, Billy Kelly quite frankly seems to understand and the songs on Everyone’s A TV Star Tonight reflects that.

There is so much going on in the album, so much hidden away that on first listen, even second or third go, you might not get it all. The relish comes though when you do, when that moment of clarity on tracks such as Haunted, 30 Minutes of Greatness, That Was Then! This Is Now! and the grilling nature of Strange Man all suddenly slot into place and the world becomes a darker sinister location but with a possible answer squirreled away in the background, there for when you are ready to use it. The album certainly feels as if Billy Kelly, armed with a caustic wit, a more keen eye than a hundred trained cameras and a charming sound from his guitar, has an answer, it might not be your truth but at least Billy Kelly has stated his, super stuff.

Ian D. Hall