Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

Liverpool in the sunshine, for that matter in any weather, is a wondrous place and when the music gets its look in the summer haze it becomes even more special. The sense of history that emanates across the city is captured in how music can appear seemingly anywhere, from somebody picking up a guitar and heading down to the docks and giving the visitors an extra reason for enjoying their day out or even when it features heavily at a craft fair in a building that not long ago was more suited the grind, dirt and steel, the imagery of the dark satanic mills never too far away.

Nighthowl, the delicious talent that sits in the bodies of Elizabeth Kearney and Phil Poole, typifies this urban renewal, the brick and dust, the industrial blended with nature, the sunny disposition that makes folk music so enjoyable and accessible. On one hand you have the leather clad Phil Poole looking magnificently dishevelled, tousled hair but with an energy that is wrapped up in good humour and on the other, the serenity that embodies Elizabeth Kearney, a voice that sounds so sweet and refreshing that she compliments Phil completely.

The audience that were milling their way around Camp and Furnace were treated to the sound of great songs played with a sense of timing that has just got better and better each time the pair perform.   With tracks such as the opener Sweet Jonathan, Pale Mother, the beautiful Under The Old Crab Apple Tree, Lonely Drive Home and a wonderful arrangement in which Phil and Elizabeth took on The White Stripes classic Seven Nation Army and The Eurythmics Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) in an amalgamation that would have had the foundry’s fathers and workers frothing at the bit wondering how they pulled off the heady mixture.

Every scene in Liverpool is well versed with people who typify the music, in Nighthowl, folk has two champions that stand out and do their music justice.

Ian D. Hall