This has been a long time coming to review this. I mean, a long time to finally give Beatrix Players’ follow-up, Living & Alive the chance to shine brightly. Amy Birks’ conceptual story about trying to live a normal life, can be complicated and hard at times to see where they’ll go next as the future, waits for them.
There are some stronger boundaries to chamber music, Celtic-folk, classical orientations, it shows that Birks is a fighter, and has proven herself that she’s not backing down without a fight. While she’s a founding member of the band, she’s brought in a little help between flautist John Hackett and cellist Jane Fenton, keeping the Beatrix spirit alive.
But once of the original members of the Players shows up to lend Amy a helping hand on the sombring ‘Overflow’ featuring Helena Dove, they still have the magic inside their hearts. It soars with massive amounts of energy with pastoral string sections and angelic vocalisation that takes listeners through the wonders of the English countryside.
The opening track ‘Snowflakes’ starts to build as the light shines on Amy when she sings the line, “There’s no such thing as ordinary moment / There’s never nothing going on / There’s never such a day as clear as the day / That’s too late”. It deals with the moment life is very short, and you need to keep your head and cherish the moments you have on this earth before going into the afterlife.
Hackett’s flute spreads into the cold, wintery day during the beautiful snow that has hit parts of England, and enjoying the ice crystals that has suspended in the atmosphere while Oliver Day perks up into the wonders to bring in his emotional strength of his finger-picking guitar work, dealing with the aftermath of looking back with ‘Somebody Else’s Eyes’.
Once Tom Manning comes into the fold, who was a part of the Beatrix Players family, he lends Ms. Birks a helping hand in the ascending game of chess of having this massive reality check of never turning back between ‘This Is Your Life’ and the alternative rocker ‘Start Again’ with its Tori Amos approach to the arrangements.
Then, the clock begins to tick between the piano and guitar for the introduction as your life starts to go on ‘You Can’t Hit a Nail.’ You feel the time is starting to go out quickly to make amends, but you have to learn to let the past and the present be with its intensive cello section Fenton does and Booker’s heart-pounding bass drum to make the beats hit hard.
Once the waltz-like section starts to kick in to being ‘Free’ you are now in the after-life. Free from all of the pain and suffering you went through, free from all of the chaos that surrounds you, and now reuniting with your loved ones with melodic guitar dancing around a time signature, going in at 3/4 before closing up shop to ‘Me I Am Me’, reflecting on what has happened throughout the entire structure of the story.
Amy takes a moment of reflection, as she dances this intensive tango sequence for the rhythm section to create, to go out in a blaze of glory. It’s always great to see what Amy’s been doing behind closed doors. Whether its being as a solo artist or with Beatrix Players, it helps us to hear something fresh and something unique to ease the trouble and pain that we go through.
Living & Alive is an album that’ll be played for a long, long time. Subversive, wonder, it’s all there to reveal something magical that is waiting for you.
