Liberty Ship - Tide

I first came across Marc Elston, main singer/guitarist with Nottingham 4-piece the Liberty Ship, when he was one half of early 1990's duo Bulldozer Crash. By way of research, I dug out the two Bulldozer Crash 7" singles I had from an old box of singles gathering dust in the corner of my record room, and gave them a whirl. It was easy to see why they had been boxed away for so long, as the ravages of time had not treated them kindly. At best, they sounded weedy. But give Marc his due, that was over 10 years ago and his current LP, the debut by The Liberty Ship, shows a marked progression. Indeed it is even an improvement on the pleasant "I Guess You Didn't See Her" that I'd recently heard on the excellent Fire Station Records compilation ('I'd Tried a Thousand Times, a Thousand Times to Change Your Mind). The overall sound on 'Tide' is much more accomplished than previous releases and represents the fact that The Liberty Ship are a fully realised band as opposed to a bedroom project. Opening gambit 'Finer Feelings' sets the tone nicely, but its co-singer/guitarist, Rachel Eyres, that cements a solid start with the impressive 'Final Kick' - very much in the style of Tompaulin or even The Haywains. 'Cabin Fever', one of the LP's stronger tracks, sees Marc back on lead vocals, before 'Baseball Caps and Novas' questions some of the lessdesirable sides of modern society in a fine pop format. Rachel skips confidently through the country-fied 'Stars Above', before we get to the album's highlight and, sadly, last track,'Yuri Gagarin', an urgent guitar rocker that blows away the weedy tag of old. In between times we get one or two harmless ballads, but all in all this is a promising debut that's worth finding some spare cash for......of course, I may change my mind in 10 years!

Track Listing:-

1 Finer Feelings
2 Chords Drag You Down
3 Final Kick
4 Precious Time
5 Coast
6 Cabin Fever
7 Shine On
8 Baseball Caps And Novas
9 I'll Try
10 Stars Above
11 Actually
12 Yuri Gagarin