Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10
We think we deserve to be in the light, to be the sunshine of everybody’s life, to be seen as so bright that in our company wearing shades becomes obligatory and without causing anything but smiles and hearing the hearty words of congratulations. That is the modern effect of belief, installed into us that we can be all things to all people and they will thank us for the barest effort we show.
To be truly admired, to lay waste to the enforced isms that cloud judgement we must be willing to admit that At Night The World Belongs To Me, to be eager to be seen more than just a passenger on the avenue of the four in the morning pavement blues and understand that darkness breeds its special kind of artist. Anyone can be a sensation when the sun highlights their appeal, but it takes the measured cool of the moon surrounded by darkness to truly capture the spirit and artistry of the person involved.
Polymath Ashley Reaks 16th solo album is one of eclecticism, of profound observation wrapped in the reflection of the poetry of melancholic realisation. It is in such moments of life we gain access to a truth, that nothing is forever, but we can damn sure we leave something that outshines the moon for those that have chosen to follow the path of integrity.
At Night The World Belongs To Me was written in the heart of adversity, of personal silence that drowned out the uncomfortable, but was rebuilt in the heat of a heart fighting for each beat of memory, of prising brilliance from the mind to lay out before the assembled and the majestically curious and seeing it turn to imagination driven gold.
An album unafraid of the mysterious, of being in tune with darkness and pulling shafts of luminosity from its bold broad sack, and as tracks such as the incredible opener of Playing Skittles With The Skulls And The Bones, So Fragile So Zen, Life Forever Underground, Her Gorgeous Tiny Highway, and Eyeing Up The Sky, the music becomes an aid of recovery for all, and when infused by the muscular tones of enveloping poetry, such recovery is inevitable, and towering.
A terrific exploration of soundscapes and influence, a melding of single-minded cooperation and the openness of an artist willing to discuss personal issues; untethered, unbound, an unending wonder.
Ian D. Hall