Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 8.5/10

The enormity of the project that Karl McCann has undertaken is evident as he follows up his previous releases, including Put It All Behind You and It Was Only A Dream with an impressive insight into the way we perhaps understand music as listeners and how an artist can pull you into seeing, witnessing a kind of metamorphosis of intention and belief of the personal epic, of pushing the artistic boundary beyond the comfortable but producing something rather incredible.

Aided and produced by Liverpool’s Forthaven, Trial By Versions captures the sense of identity, of the loss we suffer everyday by appeasing to the wider world just so they can find comfort in our authentic self, and of a truth that is undeniable, that when we offer ourselves to the eyes of others we must not back down in our belief of just how unique we must be.

Trial By Versions is complex, perhaps as the listener might expect, but that is the point, it refuses to cater to ease and by doing so it gains a kind of sensual danger, of cool heartbeats heated by an intelligent fierceness that bows to no one.

Across tracks such as Too Far Away, Byproduct Of A Byproduct, Schizo Business, the album title track Trial By Versions, and the excellent Eva capture the imagination to the point where the overall feeling for the listener will push them to look at the musician as more than an artist, and more of weaver of life, his life in the web of others, one he controls with precision, plucking at the silk of notes and variation of account of stories he places in trust for all to unravel and understand.

Karl McCann and Forthaven deserves upmost praise for the collaboration, for the way both have brought out the best in each other’s vision and application to the cause. Trial By Versions is a piece by piece examination of an artist, an aural portrait of the performer in full flow.

Ian D. Hall