Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

Everybody needs a lifeline in their life. Whether it is the friend that will take a call at four in the morning when the ebb is at its lowest, the chance to shine when everything else has been denied to them or even just the possibility that a feeling of hope may be reciprocated and followed through, there should always be a lifeline for everybody.

For Forthaven, Lifeline is more than a state in which to behold, it is a set of new songs from one of the most distinctively creative and resourceful minds of the area, on a par with artists such as Love Artuk and the more colourful poets that reside in the Liverpool area. Lifeline, the by-product that hope attaches itself should never be ignored, for if there is no hope then all is lost, all withers to the point of exhaustion and the combustible.

The team that resides in the Forthaven sanctuary, Jay C. Roberts, his long standing accomplice Emma Rose on vocals and Alistair Ligerwood who purrs like the Cheshire Cat on cello have made Lifeline another set of songs that not only capture the imagination, but dig deeper into a certain frame than perhaps has gone before. The tunnel of inspiration having been widened has now opened up another rich dazzling seam, a seam that somehow has offered a new slightly diverging approach.

Whilst on the face of it, the songs, Saved, Reprocity, Entity, Silence and the title track, Lifeline have much in common with any past releases, there is a noticeable shift, small, perhaps undreamt and unconsciously delivered but it is there and the strength of optimism that can be seen is one that should be encouraged to flow further, to be brought out of the tunnel’s mouth and into the open air. The black soot of pessimism washed clean and allowed to sparkle, for it is not musical coal that has been mined, it is the hopeful beginning of a diamond claim and Forthaven deserve it immensely.

The Lifeline is there to be seen, to be felt as the music floats gently in the ether, this is no retreat, it is Forthaven making a line in the sand and pressing forward.

Ian D. Hall