Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

We are only alone if we truly believe that there is nothing that surrounds us.

We can go out into the environment which we first gazed upon as a wondering, interested child and find stimulation, whether in the cliffs that overlook a raging sea or an ocean holding darkness and frightening diversity in equal stunning measure, or on the hard soaked pavements and austere bricks and mortar that reflect a mindset of uniformity and almost sterile infringement, we ask the question on loneliness with sincerity and a knowing sign on our stomachs.

When You’re Alone, How Does It Feel? is the new release by the Irish singer/song writer/producer Rory Ryan, and the seismic tone of the recording is one that frames with intensity and meaning the natural over the condensed, of the appreciation that the countryside, the realm of landscape has over that in which arguably true loneliness is felt, in the captivity of a large complex, and often alien like, modern city.

It is the evocative serenade that Rory Ryan pushes with gravitas and sensual belief that answers the question for us, if we commune and let our thoughts fly free as we walk in the shadow of the eternal, then how can be anything but comforted. For there may not be another human to witness our mind at work, but the wind and scenery are blessed by our presence, the ground beneath our feet remembers the footsteps we take and provides the path in time, and if we listen, if we truly pay attention to that outside of our internal struggle and demanding egos, then we might hear the company we truly yearn for…nature in her most elegant, demonstrative voice.

Through the presence of tracks such as Together, In The Past, If I Ever Feel Like Coming Back, It’s Not Always Bad, I Know That It’s Over, Keeping My Mind Quiet, and the tremendous finale of Two Sides Of The Same Coin, Rory Ryan admonishes the silence that has come from his native Galway’s decline in recent years, but his hope that comes from that tantalising voice rings eternal.

As rugged as the seas and oceans, as calm as the fertile land in seed, When You’re Alone, How Does It Feel? asks just one thing of us, to understand that at times our own company is enough to reassure is that we are not abandoned, we are not deserted, but we are free.

Rory Ryan releases When You’re Alone, How Does It Feel? On March 22,

Ian D. Hall