Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
Addiction comes in many forms and can either be a blessing or indeed more than likely, a curse which cannot be satisfied and saps you of energy, conscious and proper thought. Obsession and a sweet craving for the music of Sean Taylor should be seen as a good and necessary need, a compulsion in which to break would be bitter and leave the music lover despondent. For Sean Taylor, it seems, The Only Good Addiction Is Love and it is fulfilling and brutally charming whichever way it is looked upon.
When Sean Taylor states that he believes that, “Words are more than words”, he obviously have faith in that fact, he lives it and positively exudes that premise that the twin states of love as addiction and the use of language, especially that which exists in the form of the poetic juncture, is the greatest of all habits that someone can have in their lives. One that is worth every sleepless night, every fevered brow and moments of regret.
Love though can take many different forms and The Only Good Addiction Is Love shows that off fully and with candour pouring from every aperture, every small crevice; even those that might have been filled with the sound of empty spaces and the unfilled desire of a sad violin playing in the darkness and rallying against the cold light of day.
The album doesn’t just proclaim love as a statement. It lives it fully and in songs such as Rothko, Tienes Mlam En Tus Manos, We Can Burn and the delightful re-imagining of W.B. Yeats’ The White Birds as a hybrid of music, poetry and an instruction on life, Sean Taylor really hits home that affection, deep rooted love and purity of devotion are not just addictions, they are truths in which the honour bound seek no glory but who are content to admit their weakness but also see it as a powerful ally; a strength of character to which no tyrant can dissuade.
Poetic, the layers of sadness, regret and honesty that come through each line and the strength to show the heart as a delicate machine all make The Only Good Addiction Is Love an album in which to be grateful for eloquence and satisfied declarations of adoration.
Ian D. Hall