Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
We don’t celebrate life in the way that it should be, by that virtue we look upon the loss of anyone with a mixture of regret, sadness, and sometimes the unfathomable, all the emotions brought on because we had no idea what the person who has left us was truly like.
It comes out of fear of acknowledging Death as a dark, suspicious entity rather than a guide, we refuse to have the conversations in which such avenues of exploration and reveal may disturb us; and yet, if we looked to the songs we could sing, talk of the adventures instead of being closed of then surely what a musical that would create, what stories that could be captured, and as Jason Robert finds in The Death Of Stone Stanley, the scene painted would be one of extraordinary beauty.
Life and Death are so intrinsically linked that we find solace in both when we accept that we cannot change the fundamental point of existence, however it takes depth of character and more than a sense of the heroic to bring the songs of such union to the forefront of the listener’s mind.
In Jason Robert’s The Death Of Stone Stanley the stories that are brought to life are ones that capture the essential quality of the fearless pursuit, of acknowledging the truth of our situation, and one that goes someway to defying the nature of the turned head. Life and Death, it comes in equal measure, and Jason Robert opens the door to both with ease.
Across songs such as Good Vibes, John The Revelator, Moonshiner, the fantastic, and arguably one of the best songs of the last two years, Mr Bell, Never Gonna Die, Soul Of A Man and Woke Up This Morning, the Blues is to be regarded as the deliverer of the soul, to find a resting place that rocks and one that cannot be displaced by the simplicity of belief.
The Death Of Stone Stanley is a marvellously themed album, one that is respectful to its origins, but also one that is not shy from confronting the arguments and topics so vividly framed; a masterpiece of musical story-telling.
Ian D. Hall