Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

We are forever in search of ways to heal, to reconcile and rebuild, and if not cure, then at least restore to a point where the date in which we found we were separated from our view of reality. Healing is the modern-day utopia, the ideal from where we were once lost is within our grasp, therapy is reliable, and yet what all just need to realise that to soothe our soul, to cure the ills of corporate machinations and government interference is to listen to our heart, to believe that Healing can come from within, it comes from the art we must allow in our lives.

No matter which way we find the momentum of therapeutic wellness, it surely can come with no greater emphasis for the soul than the release of one’s own feelings, questions, and understanding than in physical form, in the image of book, in the herculean effort of a song created after hours, maybe years of finding the right way to express the doubt we have.

The sense of soothing, of energised setting is absolutely in evidence as Aberdeenshire’s AJ McLovely takes to the stage she has come to embrace and in the response of her debut E.P., Healing, what she places in the listener is an event, an effect, the outcome of belief being given a voice, and when it comes from the heart of one who has waited, one who has forged their own steel whilst being around a culture that thinks that richness of soul is adorned by paper value, then those that listen benefit from the principle of communication created.

Healing comes from communication, and as the four songs that make up the debut E.P., Born To Make A Difference, Hold On, Bleeding Heart, and Breathe wash over the listener, it is to the communication of new voice, of a new perspective that takes root; for healing is not always about finding the right ear, it is connecting with the right soul.

A beautifully crafted introduction, AJ McLovely has been unveiled before the world at a time when connection and communication are vastly in need of being acknowledged.

AJ McLovely’s Healing is out now.

Ian D. Hall