Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
Every little thing we do is documented from the moment we come into the world, and if we are fortunate, that comes in the form of art, through the skill and performance of a person who will do anything, who will tear apart the world, just to make you smile.
A dedication on an album will give us a glow, a mention in a biography will leave a lasting impression for the generations that follow us on Time’s crazy stone paving; to be the star of the tale, the inspiration, the stimulus for the artist’s pursuit of examination will forever be the lodestone of our time on Earth, for we are the reason a piece of art, in whatever form, exists.
He may be a Shropshire lad, but Thom Morecroft is a son of Liverpool, the man and the artist has rightfully earned the honour bestowed upon him by many from the city, and that son’s latest offering to the world of music is the gorgeous sound that frames Waiting For Leo.
For a musician, a man, who wears his emotions with pride, his ability to feel the expression of a silent breath expelled into the world and the damage to the soul from an unexpected raindrop on skin as the sun beats down, Waiting For Leo is a set of songs that truly focus his attention, his love, and the Muse that comes in the form of a life changing, and life affirming, moment of birth.
Written, engineered, mixed and performed by the musician in his own home, what comes across is boundless and filled with hope, the tales spun may have been homegrown, but that home is the proverbial nest, it is the place of safety to which we understand comes with responsibility and the dreams of a future for someone other than ourselves.
It is a nurturing experience, tracks that catch the lump in the throat, that have an undercurrent of concern that no matter what you do in life it will never be enough, and then there is love, a ferocity of words soothed by a sound that is uncontainable.
As tracks such as The Last Day You Left Home, which features the beautiful backing vocals of Jenny Coyle, All In My Head, Somebody Hurt Me, the finery and comfort of Mother Pillow, the nuance of sadness and grief of When I Bury My Father, and the finale of The Heavenly Doctor, flow with sincerity and belief, what hits the listener is their own understanding of when they too waited for someone with such longing.
The journey is only just beginning, the road never straight, the path often containing pitfalls, but it is one worth taking, and with Waiting For Leo adding another distinctive notch in the musical belt of a Shropshire lad, so the journey will continue onwards; and you could not be happier to be part of it.
Ian D. Hall