Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10
The Terms of My Surrender, the new album by John Hiatt, is far from a submission, a yielding to an audience that has seen Blues once more become a force in the mainstream, with big thanks in part to the likes of Joe Bonamassa and British female star Joanne Shaw Taylor but it also doesn’t quite hit the big numbers that you almost find yourself willing to hear.
Relationships are the key to any good Blues album, the primary one is of course between the listener and the musician, the language of expression in which the Blues player can captivate the listener just by stating the condition of their life, the position in which they find the rich tapestry has taken them, all is as if magic to the those who place the earphones over their heads and prepare to have the interaction between guitar and humanity soar above the clouded despondency that is daily life.
Like some relationships, some are better that others, none are ever forgotten, the names of all those you have flirted with stay with you but some are more easily remembered than others and so it goes for The Terms of My Surrender. Some songs don’t quite live up to the high code laid out by Mr. Hiatt; others though play with the heart as if guided by a mischievous but fun loving demon.
Stand out tracks on the recording include Face of God, Nobody Knew His Name, the album title track, Terms of My Surrender and Baby’s Gonna Kick. This last track in particular captures something of the rawness of emotion that you desperately want from the Blues, the honesty of passion, that brief interlude in which a thousand looks and tears can be summed up with the reaction to an understanding between two people. A simple song, a classic song full of realisation and pathos, a piece of music in which the reaction that the listener feels is nothing short of pain for the person who has become their friend during the course of the record.
John Hiatt is a star, of that there is no doubt, however the passion you want from the Blues, that feeling of extraordinary melancholy and positive woe, of remarkable beautiful sorrow only really comes out in patches, good patches but not enough to make the Blues sing fully.
Ian D. Hall