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This album kicks off with the crashing and distorted drumbeats and epic strings that play a significant part throughout
the entire album. The opening track Sharpen up the knives takes you into a crescendo of heavy emotion head first so much so
it becomes difficult not to be moved just by its sheer intensity alone. Personally I find it tricky to name a more heart-wrenching
opener to any other album I've heard.
The following track in contrast (This feeling) gives us the innocent
acoustic that drifts through the background giving you a sense of something fragile and precious. The next track is also a
single released from the album (It doesn't matter anymore) offers a similar beauty but in such a way it feels like a broken
modern fairy tale where James shuddering voice is the story teller.
The album returns back to more spiritual
noise with Street lights, a song that blazes hard between a little soft bass near the beginning and the overwhelming intensity
of Street lights shining on your hard time as the realisation sets in.
Whispering bass, shivering vocals,
deep lyrics the drum beats slowly quicken without recognition, this song (Standing in your shadow) reflects the moving and
epic nature of James voice before returning back into his shell as the later portion of the song is taken over by the haunting
bass and drums that seem strangely apt alongside the vocals. This is arguably the most moving track on the album and would
have fit nicely somewhere into their debut album.
All I want features the echoing bass drum and the acoustic
marvel that just tip toes throughout the track until it becomes not afraid anymore. Conjoined with the constantly dark thrills
of the moving strings and James voice, this is a song that just sticks together musically as much as it sticks in your mind.
Just another beautiful Puressence single.
Behind the man fits perfectly as a prelude to the earth shattering
Never be the same again which results in the most epic song inside the album. After its deceptive first ten seconds, the song
matures and grows until it blasts you away with lyrics that describe a single moment in your life where your perception of
life is altered forever; it becomes hard not to become sucked into its intensity completely.
Slow struggling
beats are met with the disappointment and heavy nature of its lyrics in this track (Hey hey im down) I thought it would last
a life time it only last a day, this song like many other typical Puressence album tracks trundles along a bleak road, hitch
hiking other strong emotions along the way.
Past believing. this is a track packed full of fight back
and hope scattered with belief and gives preserves to your broken soul I wont stop breathing, not until Im past believing
giving your soul a chance to run free, the overlapping vocals work absolute wonders on this track.
The
penultimate song on this album reflects a desperate intensity emphasised in particular through the emptiness and shaken voice
heard inside the last minute of this track. The lyric its good to know your with someone half as good as me however gives
the track a weird but nice little smugness inside the song.
Gazing Down is a huge amalgamation of sloppy
funky drum beats that ride alongside Neil Mc Donalds thrilling scratchy guitars that climax into a fitting end for the album.
Although James lyrics are largely abandoned during the second half of this seven-minute epic climb but they still linger throughout
the track and indeed your conscience after the album is over.
This album leaves you wanting more, my
advice if you have the time, energy and cash.... check out the b-sides to the singles on this album. They are something very
special and maintain the stunning and haunting emotional climaxes associated with some of their best work. I've sampled a
track from their unreleased album and it doesn't disappoint so look out for their next roller coaster experience when their
third album enters the shops.
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