Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

It could all come down to consistency for some, but in the end is there much difference Between Wine and Blood?

For New Model Army, the difference may be down to taste but what they have done with this double C.D. package is something that captures the very best of both worlds. Six brand new songs, six reasons in which to cheer the original work of Justin Sullivan, Michael Dean, Dean White, Marshall Gill and Ceri Monger, six songs in which reminded the listener of the past, specifically around the time of Thunder and Consolation but also in which carries the extremely good work that appeared on the Between Dog and Wolf album.

As always a bonus comes knocking hard on the door on the listener and it comes in the form of a rather good live set from the band during the last year. It is this combination of live and studio in which marks the difference Between Wine And Blood , the thickness and strength of the family tie compared to the beautiful savour in which friendship can be bonded, forged and respected. Both offer a type of solidarity, a harmony in which to relish and feel wanted but both options can be cruel, it can cut and maim if not handled properly. It seems the difference Between Wine And Blood is a matter of perspective, a matter in which your own thoughts can be the difference.

For the studio album side, whether Blood or Wine, the six songs represent a potency in which the world should still stand shoulder to shoulder with. This is a band in which the environment, the desecration of the green lands on which we live, feed off and look too for solitude and attachment has been part and parcel of their studio diet and yet songs such as the great Angry Planet, Happy To Be Here, Devil’s Bargain and Sunrise capture the imagination fully. This is intensified on the Live side with tracks such as March In September, Did You Make It Safe and the storming Seven Times which enclose the band as one of the most positively unique groups of the last 30 years.

There will be those that would have preferred a whole album of new songs, that to dilute a rare vintage such as New Model Army with a live album thrown in is too much to handle, that the rawness of the songs is punctuated with an outside influence. For many though this way of collecting songs frames what the band does well, the thrill of listening to a memory and forging new rememberance of the ongoing anger and the punishment to come.

Ian D. Hall