April Moon: The Other One Was You. Album Review.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Few this side of the Atlantic will ever take the chance to see beyond the metropolitan excess that the north of the American continent has to offer, to the European and wider world who visit the land of the free, and the soil of the disconcertingly polite and proudly liberal, and that is more than a shame, it is a discredit to each and every one of us who impede our discovery at the gifts shops of all the major cities and who refuse to experience what lays further on.

Americana never loses its edge or desire, but venture further north, seek out the thrill of what might be called Canadiana, for in that beautiful, and often unexplored land, started the revolution known as April Moon, and whilst there was no holler, no ringing of a famous bell which would sit under armed guard in the decades afterwards, this is instead a reflection of the country that April Moon formed its early style, and the north west of England to which the pair, Jaime April and Jason Moon have embraced in all its cultural awareness.

April Moon’s latest offering to the musically fascinated, The Other One Was You is an album of upbeat physicality, it holds the same respect as the sound of the call of the wild, or the beauty to be heard when the ice flows over Niagara Falls at the start of spring  as it decides that it’s time for nature to wake up, to bare its teeth and bang the drum of expectancy and hope.

Tracks such as the outstanding opener The Lord Hath Taken Away, At Least We Are Not Lonely, Mama I Told You Not To Worry, the simply phenomenal One Of Us Was Lying, and that dreamlike powerful vocal that ushers in the album’s closers of And The Rain Will Wash Us Clean, Queen of Destruction, and Cadilac Day, Jaime April and Jason Moon, as well as the special guests of Laura MacMillan, Tino Keith, and Christian Smith, are the human embodiment of their native land as a new fearless explorer plants their feet and minds into the sumptuous roar, so the understanding that this album is so huge that it becomes rapidly evident, it becomes as clear as prayed for early daybreak after a long winter

Like the tornados that ravage the province on a yearly basis, the sound of April Moon is one that hangs in the air and fills everything around it. The Other One Was You is a phenomenon, graceful, rocking, and full of fearless ambition; this is the sound of April Moon, let it shine in your heart.

Ian D. Hall