Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

When we are afforded time to truly immerse ourselves into our passions, something resplendent and incredible can be witnessed to have taken place; like magic being waved over those with drive, imagination and ability, but who lack Time due to outside forces commanding their attention, what transpires is a sense of purity revealed by light.

We live in a period of time where we are punished for nourishing our souls, others finding fault with our need to fulfil our promise and making demands on every second as if they are the sole dominant force in the universe.

Nothing could be further from the truth; we require Time to be who we truly are, not servants to the whims of hours blown away like dust, and as the mighty Robert Jon & The Wreck have found in the uninterrupted process of Heartbreaks & Last Goodbyes, produced by Dave Cobb, the sheer weight of consistency and atavistic belief that humanity is more than just being an automaton content with the 9 to 5, but a beast, a monster under no illusion that their will and expression on Earth is sacrosanct.

Collaborating with Dave Cobb has opened the group up, the sense of unrelenting groove is enough to consider the primeval urge to be something more than our supposed allotted destiny as a remarkable return of common sense and rather than being told to stay in our lane we expand, we grow, we conquer.

For the Southern California rockers Heartbreaks & Last Goodbyes represents a newfound glory, an immediacy of breaking up what was a grind of routine and finding satisfaction, pleasure in a kind of osmosis of insistence as the harmony and rhythm finds another level; and as tracks such as Ashes In The Snow, Highway, Dark Angel, Better Of Me, and Keep Myself Clean all blast into existence, as they spark from the inner turmoil of a exploding star creating a wave of life and colour, so Robert Jon & The Wreck becomes a tribute to earnest truth and remarkable fortitude.

To be completely in the moment and capturing Time as it was meant to be experienced in the artistic process is a fundamental right, one that should not be denied to anyone. A marvellous album, swift, sincere, all the rage of Time opened up and released against the pressures that the silence of acceptance of being controlled by others will imposes, is in effect musical dynamite, and it is glorious.

Ian D. Hall