The last post I wrote on this site was on 25th September… 2012!
I can’t believe how quickly a year has gone. It’s fair to say that I’ve been busy – when I look at what has happened in a year, it’s quite amazing – but I still can’t get over it.
I have been dying to get back to the blog but, clearly, I haven’t found the time. But with things finally starting to settle down, I hope I can get back to it and continue introducing you to new music.
Before I start, I’m hoping that you all like the new design! One of the things that has taken up my time is a project I was working on leading the build of a global digital platform. It’s fair to say that they have an infinitely larger budget then me (considering I have no budget) but exploring responsive web design and tiled interfaces inspired me to do the same here. So, with a bit of luck, you should be able to enjoy this on your mobile as easily as your desktop.
Anyway, enough of the rambling. We’re here for music and to re-kick things off I’ve chosen someone that I think is truly amazing – Lissie.
The wonderful Lissie is back with her second album titled Back To Forever (Potentially an appropriate title considering my absence). After the release of her debut album, Catching A Tiger (see my review here), she’s been busy building her profile and guesting on various albums and tracks including a reasonable amount of dance stuff with Morgan Page.
Catching A Tiger was released in June 2010 and in the 3ish years since then, Lissie has clearly spent a lot of time thinking about Back To Forever whilst honing her skills as an accomplished singer.
A few of her songs include themes linked to growing up in Rock Island, Illinois, where she apparently went back to to record the album. But more importantly, you can here the extra definition in her voice and her band come bouncing back with some awesome talent. “Further Away”, for example, has an awesome guitar solo. I also recently saw her and her band live at KoKo in London, and they were absolutely fantastic. Some mental guitar solos that send shivers down your back whilst the rest of the band equally delivered and Lissie bashed out her songs in perfect tone and with all the energy that you would hope for. If you get an opportunity to see her live, I massively recommend it!
And I guess that kind of sets up my thoughts for this album. It is really, really good. A great singer, supported by an equally great band, singing very well written songs and music. This is easily one of my favourites of the year.
5 out of 5*
So there you go. I suppose there was never a chance of me writing about a bad album for my first one back but I hope you buy it and enjoy it. I have a few other albums that I want to write about and I’ll try to get to those soon too.
Thanks for reading,
G
*For my older readers, I used to mark albums out of 4 – or 4 ‘Gs’. It was a bit limiting for middle of the road reviews so I’m changing it to out of 5… because I can 🙂