Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
There is no fear that we cannot overcome, there is no sense of failure that cannot be found and be shaken out of its apathy and allow those under its oppression to breathe once more; all it requires is a Healing Touch.
The inner conflict we face is heightened by the feeling that we have lost our way with who we really are. It could be argued that we are nothing but a paycheck waiting to happen, a transfer between the hope of a one night stand with friends doing all the pursuits of pleasure and laughter we want to achieve, and the system that binds us, the threads that pull at us, keeping us down, making sure we don’t rise off the Earth; some call it gravity, perhaps a better word would be despair.
Healing Touch addresses the feeling of such worn down and flat sentiment, the hope we install in ourselves, in our psyche that the next day will be better, that it will sing with an ever growing appreciation for the time we have on Earth and once again shake off that despair. It is an album born of the pastoral and the wind but it is also a set of instrumental tracks that are bound by confidence and by the genius that sits alongside the various instruments, Darrel Treece-Birch.
Utilising keyboards, bass, drums and guitar, the keyboard player of Ten and Nth Ascension, Mr. Treece-Birch continues to weave introspection and melody across his solo work and be seen as all encompassing Progressive as any that people might care to reel off the tongue as untouchable and insurmountable in the genre.
The Lancashire musician treats the listener to the instrumental as a guide would to the explorer finding their way to a lost city of gold; it is a journey filled with defiance, of a pure heart seeking resolution and solace and it is true to its word, it has a Healing Touch, one that evokes the memories of the long since abandoned pastoral and the elements that protect it.
In tracks such as From The Mouth, Re-Boot, The Fruits of The Spirits, God’s Medicine and The Expanse, Darrel Treece-Birch really comes alive, his arrangements are succulent and mouth watering and as always, a credit to the genre. A tremendous piece of art, for art, in the right hands, has the power of a Healing Touch.
Darrel Treece-Birch releases Healing Touch on October 27th 2017.
Ian D. Hall