Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

We search for the light that will guide us, for the lamp that warns, and our eyes are irrevocably focused on the darkness for the beacon that offers us hope, the substantial fire in the distance that calls for aid, that signals the moment to return home and leave the broken soul that you carry with heavy heart behind.

In the modern world we are summoned to ride the distance by the incessant ping of the artificial, the buzz of electronic, and unlike the beacon that grows steadily, and which asks your mind to fully accept that which glows, the damnation of the synthetic growls like a cornered wolf, offering urgency instead of warmth and heart.

The Beacon, taken from the new album by Helen Maw, Growing Pains, is that musical equivalent of the purpose built signal, but instead of the flame burning through the wood, it tears through the heart and mind, causing one to feel the depth of beauty in the combination of voice and instrument, and the other to nurse the wound it opens, the heart that grieves in spirit but which understands that to recover and heal you must be open to all the emotions that the artist places in front of you.

Those emotions flood the soul as Ms. Maw sings with acute resonance, not with a bargaining or temptation, but a purity of someone offering nothing more than the door to salvation. She will not enter the door with you but she will guide you to the point where your heart knows it must let go; and by doing so she creates a single that is significant, that holds a deep trusting meaning, and which senses your response, your next move with ease.

A terrific single, one that adds to the wisdom of looking ahead to what may come whilst reminding subtly we can make it through hardship if we answer the beacon’s call.

Ian D. Hall