Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 7/10

There is always a hole, that no matter how it is filled in, concreted over or even disguised, that retains memory, we cannot look at the space that has been occupied with genuine passion or need without ever remembering what was originally there.

Such is the fate of Status Quo’s latest album, Backbone, a loving reminder of what a set of songs from one of Britain’s finest, and much loved bands but one more than coloured in sadness and the feeling of the motion than in the pleasing urgency and centre stage exuberance than the fans, and even the general public, would be used to, or even arguably expect.

Revolution and evolution are intrinsically linked, however the relationship can also be skewed if a major component of what passes for time is removed, and whilst the songs created for the new album are pleasing, that they have their place within the band’s massive history and discography, there is still the understanding that the band is not the same without the power and style of Rick Parfitt connecting the dots and being, along with Francis Rossi, the backbone and influence of British rock.

This is not to take away from the insight that Backbone provides, or that of the remaining members of this incarnation of Status Quo, instead perhaps it should be seen as one that many groups have had to endure when a much loved member leaves or passes onto the next musical realm, that of evolution, that of persistent change, not one that finds itself stuck within a past concerned with previous pleasures.

However, there is still that hole, and whilst songs such as Liberty Lane, Backing Off, Falling Off The World, Get Out Of My Head and Running Out Of Time hold a certain kind of magic in which the fan will hold dear, the beat feels as if it is also still mourning the loss, the blow dealt as the eventually of life catches up with all.

An album arguably steeped in the retrospective thought of time and grief, one that plays out the tune and the memory but one that finds, as with so many that suffer the greatest of loss, that the evolution is the only way to carry on. Still the Quo but perhaps no longer placed in the heroics of the status quo.

Ian D. Hall