Liverpool Sound and Vision rating 8.5/10

A sudden musical blast that you were not expecting can be as exciting to rally around as that which you have been eagerly anticipating for a year, like a tornado ripping through your soul, or an avalanche seen from the safety of nearby mountain, you can only take in the majesty of the force of nature as she sweeps all before it, as she lays in wait to catch you unawares and leave you marvellously breathless.

Registering the freshly delivered is a complex formula, you don’t want to be completely swept off your feet just in case it fizzles out and leaves you sadly dejected, feeling as if the initial foray of once unexperienced euphoria might just become a case of cold misunderstanding. Yet complexity has to be damned on such occasions, fear of losing out has to be put to one side, all that is left to do is smile, grin and beam as if you have just been handed the keys to the mysteries of a large wild garden and allow what will come to you to be embraced.

For Dominic Bassnett, the road has been arguably long, sometimes possibly arduous, and who could have blamed him if he had tossed all he had gained aside and left it to other Liverpool bands to make the sharp intake of breath audibly stand out for the music lovers of the city, and beyond. Nobody would have censured him, and yet you truly cannot keep a good person, nor good music down, and in the form of Bohemea, Stuart Meadows, Jack Pilkington, Dan Hughes, Joe McBride and Dominic Bassnett deliver their first single, Septimus, with a sense of crowning glory, with fireworks and a Catherine Wheel spin that makes the heart jump for joy at each turn of the vocals and subject at hand.

To come out of nowhere, to spring a surprise on all and to carry it off with absolute conviction is to carry your soul and head high, to come into being with the force of the birth of a star in the minds of the music community is to rattle some locks that have been allowed to gather dust. A mighty bang that resounds and pushes against the grain is one to be savoured, and in Bohemea, that bang is forceful and charged, ready and willing to inject to be set loose, surely a moment that must be witnessed.

Ian D. Hall