Shamanarchy’s Rowan Reid, Zanzibar, Liverpool. July 205. Photograph by Ian D. Hall.

Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

It is impossible to not love a woman with attitude, not the type of posturing of the insane found in either gender that has them starting fights and the tears before bedtime attitude but the type of the strong, down to earth, assured in their viewpoint and not scared to give a collected audience a show that sticks long in the memory. A performance made even more impressive because of how that woman has bought the male members of the band up to the same bruising and musically intellectual point that she has attained, that is true attitude.

For Shamanarchy, Rowan Reid, Jack Thompson, Kieran McKenna and Jack Williams, the sound has become a feeling, the thought of Gods of old lording in the sky high above Humanity not only relevant, but placing their well deserved trust and devotion into the hands of four people who make a night in their company feel like you have won the lottery. The heat of exchange between Rowan Reid’s vixen-like temptation and the strength of the backing of the three young men almost as if Arthur’s Seat, long extinct and fruitless, had burst into life and the noise heard from Edinburgh to Seel Street in Liverpool.

Time is important, timing even more so, but without either the whole point of existence fades and becomes worthless; for how else are you to gauge growth and depth of appreciation if not by how the audience hollers for more and how they anticipate the next line with the eagerness of salvation. In such a short time Shamanarchy have taken was there for all to see and developed into a rich tapestry, a true complex piece of musicianship and given it extra life and one that really hits the spot.

With the band performing songs such as Bus To Nowhere, Addicted, Walls, the blindingly superb What’s Inside A Girl, Waiting Game and the surprise of a bonus song for those who had made their way through the city’s Brazillica Festival, the wonderful Euston Line, Shamanarchy have not only come of age but have further enhanced the attitude, the truth of the word, in Liverpool favourite Rowan Reid, it is an attitude that has rubbed off delightfully on her three cohorts in the band and on the audience that made Zanzibar their home for the evening.

Ian D. Hall