Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
Once upon a time, it seems at times so long ago that it could be just rumour or even sarcastic hearsay, all songs were created with the equality not afforded the species they were designed to entertain, namely the ability to make humanity think.
The songs were not alone in this conspiracy, the album cover, if designed well, was so full of intrigue that it pulled you in quicker than the lyrics were able and along with the blighter called emotional response. The album could keep you occupied for days as you poured over every possible meaning, from cover to the final full stop on the last line of the final song. In many ways that conspiracy has failed to gain momentum. In the modern age a song has a shelf life as long as the concentration span of the person who listens to it, like a short lived and doomed love affair, when the spark is gone, it either goes sour to the point where names are called on social media or ignorance becomes bliss.
Such is the reverie in Denis Parkinson’s Liverpool Skyline, such is the constant kicking of forceful and dominant imagery, it is possible to sit back and find yourself, especially if the skyline of the U.K.s New York and Nashville’s musical offspring is one that causes you inwardly gasp when you see it, offering thanks to an artist for making you relive those times.
Regardless of whether Liverpool means anything to you or not, after all this is not an album aimed at a narrow minded niche audience, the songs are keenly infectious. They don’t bump around like a stock car being cheered on those in it for the cheap thrill; they are considered, carefully measured and almost painstakingly clear in their thoughts. Songs such as the stunningly frank The idiots Guide To Modern Living, the natural air of Ghost in the Bar, King of Worthless Things and the fragility of Liar, Denis Parkinson aims high and gets attention for bringing certain subjects out into the open, even if they are tantalisingly hidden in the art of concealment, only to prized out by the tough willed and the unwary.
Liverpool Skyline, like its namesake is one that is full of mystery, of history burning brightly on the streets of a city with a long memory and an album to salute.
Ian D. Hall