Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

We may beg for many a garnish in life, for the icing of the cake to be seen as smooth, flavourful, unveiling a rich texture that excites the palette, a revelation of taste, colour, and coherent disclosure; it is after all the final cherry that we expect to be pressed into place which will give us the reason to salivate and chomp at the bit of life.

By imploring we perhaps offer the understanding that life does not contain the elusive cherry, not on every social cake, not for all to enjoy…and yet we don’t really need to beg, we just need to listen, to allow ourselves to truly concentrate on what is being urged by those at the banquet, the table of many who invite more to join, and under the auspicious divine that comes from Robin Adams’ utterly convincing and mesmerising album The Beggar, what comes across in the refinement of a full band exposure is one of humility, of knowing that which dogs us all, illness and ailment, must never stand in the way of composure and creativity. 

Until it happens to the person listening, nobody can ever find how much they are pushed to fashion something indomitable as they fight chronic illness, and for Robin Adams, The Beggar resolutely, and with charm, persuasion, and generosity of heart fulfils that strong sense of tenderness required.

With support from musicians such as Juliette Lemoine, David Bowden, Dan Brown, and Emma Pantel Bowden, as well as host of others, the songs on offer as virtuous, effective, full of opinion and drive, but above all, a truth to which Mr. Adams holds on to with a vigorous grip.

With moments such as the opening embrace The Rover and the introduction of the album’s title track, The Beggar, the sense of pain and release, of passion and refusal of damnation strides with purpose, and through The Metamorphosis, Ride On, In The Darkness, and the exquisite closing salvo of Must Be Dreaming and Blue Flower Slumber, Robin Adams excels with a heart beating longing that is beautiful and poetically ferocious.

A true masterpiece in the making, The Beggar is the ideal form of the melding of humanity’s pain and suffering bested with temperance and love.

Ian D. Hall