Bolshy, Reap The Storm. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

There is nothing like the sound of youthful anger wrapped up in the song of passion, it gives hope, it offers a sense of wellbeing that no matter what, and for all the denigration they often suffer due to narrow minded comments which seek to detract them, so much of what they have to say is vital, fundamental to our continued security as a society. It is easy to be critical of those coming through, it is effortless to communicate everything we may believe to be wrong with their outlook but it is they who Reap The Storm, they who take all the punishment of words and verbal mismanagement.

It is a reaping that Liverpool band Bolshy are happy to take on, to destroy and fight, they are almost ecstatic to wage war on and see casualties of particular thought and unwelcome, uninformed opinion drop like flies; not in a sense of allowing these detractors the glee of being proved right but because it is important to know that Time must evolve, we must eventually give way to rebellion.

There is a sense of revolution that hangs in the air supplied by Molly, Louis, Harley, Sam, Robyn, Jenny and Andrew, a beguiling notion of internal power that soaks up everything around them and one that wishes to be heard; a revolution of spirit that truly is a remarkable feature of the band’s work so far and one that crowds and multiplies with heartfelt cheer as the album progresses.

The beat is enormous, the genuinely hard work has been so well worth it and each note captured, a mixture of several genres and styles, is in itself utterly beguiling.

In tracks such as Hierarchicide, the fantastic Ignorance is Strength, Open Season and What We Claim To Be, the open minded free spirit, the complex terms of engagement that the group provide is scintillating, a true pleasure captured and followed through; this is a gunshot, a drum roll that sparks mutiny, an insurgency which the only objective is to be heard, to be seen, to bear witness to a change that must eventually come, one that is so readily employed by Bolshy, a band ready to reap the benefits of the oncoming storm.

Ian D. Hall