Reviewed by Sammy Horner

On a recent trip to Ulster, someone bunged this CD in my mit and mumbled something about the fact that Mr Bennet was too shy to give it to me himself. Now this can be for several reasons:- (a) Alistair sees me a very saintly and holy man of God and so has massive respect for my integrity, critical awareness and humility; (b) Alistair is genuinely humble and shy; or (c) This album is a real dog and it's better that I can't recognise him in public should we ever meet. Well, if you know me at all you will have guessed that possibility (a) is highly unlikely. Having met many musos shyness is not high on the character list and so I put this album in my player thinking, "Category (c)...l bet it's category (c)!" Not only was I wrong, but I was completely wrong. What a gem! An acoustic-ish set of well written well played songs. Familiar themes of love and devotion, poetically strung together to create a wonderful debut disc that reminds me of the best of Deacon Blue (very hot piano playing here) in an unplugged situation. This excellent disc certainly guarantees that Mr Bennet will need to come to terms with his shyness, I predict that a lot of people will be wanting to talk to him very, very soon!

The opinions expressed in this article are not necessarily those held by Cross Rhythms. Any expressed views were accurate at the time of publishing but may or may not reflect the views of the individuals concerned at a later date.

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