Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
Every one of us is capable of suffering Moments Of Madness, just as we are qualified to wreck someone’s day by just a simple act of unthinking, or causing devastation by being placed into a position of responsibility that leaves the country in a mess, and the whole world laughing at your response.
Every day we see others create an issue, an unthinking drama that unfolds because they switched off their brains and allowed air to fill up their minds, and that moment of madness becomes replayed in the modern age on social media platforms the wide world over.
With ten considerable solo albums now to his name, as well as collaborations and the huge selection as part of The Stranglers adding valour and grit to his already immaculate style, Hugh Cornwell’s latest flourish and reveal to the audience is one that carries the proclamation of being able to look back on a period of time that none should have had to suffer, and one fuelled by a national obsession of seemingly wanting to play advocate to the damned, to the foolish, to the gallery of the malnourished imagination.
Moments of Madness, an apt description of the world seen through the eyes of an observer, a seeker of a truth that has slowly been eroding the more we move away from common sense and the pursuit of the absurd, and there is no doubting that Hugh Cornwell feels every word and motion as he takes the listener through tracks such as the opener Coming Out Of The Wilderness, the in initial single, Red Rose, the anguish released in When I Was A Young Man, the chilling reminder of fear in all its diverse forms in Beware Of The Doll, and the excellent Too Much Trash, in which Mr. Cornwell squares up to the throwaway society that is content to drown us all in a sea, an ocean of garbage.
Self-produced by the artist, and with all instruments being played by himself, Moments of Madness is Hugh at arguably his boldest, his most confident, and an album that is perhaps the one that showcases the drive of the performer and observer in all his pomp and consideration.
Ian D. Hall