Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10
Be the best that you can ever be, but never allow yourself to think that you are superior to anyone, be gracious and be an inspiration, however, never allow anyone to stop your dreams, never allow the Goddaughters of providence and chance to stop you from conceiving brilliance.
Following on from 2020’s The Wine Of Youth and pursued through a period in time in which life, human existence was pushed close to breaking, San Diego’s Zach Phillips returns, stimulated and encouraged by a darker sentiment, one of a possibility that we never want to see or consider happening in his brand new release, the superb Goddaughters.
In times of social uncertainty and national anxiety, it is a normal reaction to think of what a final declaration would sound like, for an artist it is the bell of entropy and change, for whilst the working person might have their own tune to whistle in the days of finality, it is the artist, the poet, the musician, the actor, and the scribe who find themselves in the role of the observer, and who would be jealous of such a position, who would swap placed in the realm of possible termination.
Across tracks such as Worshipers, Harmony Grove, The Hour I First Believed, the feeling of the infinite that pursues the listener in Courtesy Of A True God, the twin expose and bookends of the album in Cassiopeia and Cassiopeia In The Stars, and the album title track Goddaughters, Zach Phillips reaches out to the listener, and to the future, a serenade of what ifs and maybes given life beyond the deadline of another’s dream.
It is to be in the moment, the technique of the now, for that is the truth of going beyond a time in which you might see your name and visions fade from Time’s interminable grasp, for in resolution and with grace, Zach Phillips exemplifies how to deal with the Goddaughters of fate, illusion, pain, and worry, by simply sticking to your plan for as long as it goes, to defy their reason, to ignore their pleas and damage.
An album of fierce belief, written in a time of darkness, released into the light and surrounded by a family of blood and friendship.
Ian D. Hall