Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

In a world that insists on pushing more than one handcart towards Hell, it often takes a sincere conveyor of words and acute observation to make you stop and think of just how love and honour can arrest the final slide into oblivion, how a small momentary glance can unveil a wealth of information to which many who insist that they are blind, will force their eyes open and make them challenge their personal, and sometimes dogmatic, views.

The line in the sand is one that is often scuffed over, shifted as the winds of change suggest that the truth is a far distance from where you may stand, and despite good intentions, regardless of the way you have held yourself in the public eye and in private all your life, someone will look at you and refuse to budge, they will look to you to alter your opinion and they will insist that this is the line and no further.

There is always the grateful insistence that your heart demands when you hear a new set of songs by Liverpool’s Ian Prowse, whether or not in the form of Amsterdam, Pele or his own prodigious solo work; it is the insistence that comes hand in hand with a truth, and whilst not everybody looks upon that virtue with the same discerning eye, some see it more clearly than others.

It is a virtue that has held Ian Prowse in high esteem, not only in the city he calls home, but farther afield, praise that could be heard from the Brooklyn Bridge to the banks of the Thames, but always with The Mersey as the place where the musician will announce with pleasure, this is it, Here I Lie.

Here is the line, a place we should all be able to say Here I Lie, with truth in hand, no matter if it is in the deeply personal, the reflective or dispelling the myths that Government spreads, this is the place where I make the stand and should I fall at least I would have stood for something.

Whether in the songs We Ride At Dawn, American Wake, the passion of All The Royal Houses, the honest pride in Rebel Girl or Second Journey, what is evident is that the smiling anger is still there, the sense of passion and fortitude rides alongside and the concern for others, not only those who unable to help the fight, but worry for those that insist they are blind to it, all come under the watchful eye and conscience of one who has always stood firmly in the line.

Not just a great return, but a timely one, for we need a conscience to rely upon.

Ian D. Hall