Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
The hardest thing of all is to admit that The Struggle is real, that each step we take can feel, on the worst of days, as if we are treading with slow grind consistency in a swimming pool covered in solidifying lava and without a hope of finding a way to be released from our torment…and yet, if we reach out, if we find the trust in the hand offered, and the honesty within to show our understanding then time finds a way to make the demand on soul something to sing about, to make the fight worthwhile.
The struggle is met on our own part by compassion, to not just show the act of empathy and consideration on your face, but to live them, to live the concern, to be nothing short of kind and to listen, for what may be a simple state of rectifying a problem to one person, to others could mean the final stone added, the pebble sized problem which sinks them into the lava, which drowns them in the pool forever.
In his first solo adventure for a decade, Michael Weston King proves that music listens as well as it is played, and in the album The Struggle he attends to those fears, he focuses upon the fears, the insecurities that gnaw at each of us and offers musical vignettes, the serenades of the self, in the hope and acknowledged truth that he, along with millions of others, does care.
Aided by Steve Nieve, Jeb Loy Nichols, Barnaby Dickinson, his wife and musical partner in My Darling Clementine, the outstanding Lou Dalgleish, and on woodwind, his daughter Mabel Dalgleish-King, Michael Weston King soothes the soul with a blend of dedication, skilfully drawn and observed lyrics, and the compassion of a man who does not preach to those in pain, but who wishes to ease the torment the only way he possibly can, by drawing upon the well of music and finding that one image that will inspire the listener to talk, to seek out the point of being whole and not suffering under the false illumination offered by disillusion and despair.
Across tracks such as Weight Of The World, Another Dying Day, The Old Soft Shoe, Valerie’s Coming Home, Me And Frank, Ghostwriter, and Theory Of Truthmakers, which is in itself the epitome of working through a tough time as the lyric comes from an unused segment of writing by the much missed friend and collaborator Jackie Leven, Michael Weston King lives that struggle with the listener, the depth of cruelty exposed when we lose those we love, those who made our lives that little bit rosier.
The Struggle is real, both in our minds and physically, and we combat it, we fight it in anyway which way we can, and in the act of listening we find the inspiration to help others, by song, by deed, by truth, we assist in the great cause of humanity; a valuable lesson taught by the mastery of music on display at the fingers of Michael Weston King.
Michael Weston King releases The Struggle on April 1st via Cherry Red Records.
Ian D. Hall