Three albums in four years! Come on! I don’t believe that Deacon Blue believed that this would happen but Believers is here and this Trilogy of albums (Hipsters, A New House, Believers) seems to not be so an Indian summer of a career as a brand spanking new and relevant contribution to a music world that as a band they walked away from over 20 years ago.
Believers glides in melodic flight, the harmonies make it soar and Jim Prime’s piano gives the updraft. These are are immediately accessible rock pop songs that bore their inedible beauty through your skull.
Ricky Ross has always added to his melodies a wonderful light touch of lyrical flair. His images, his rhyme, his look at the world creates three minute sermonettes that can nourish the soul without having to preach.
Perhaps it’s in Gone that we find the core thought of Believers:
“Everybody’s lost
Not just the ones you know
We are reluctant travellers
All trying to get home.”
Ross has said that the record was written in the shadow of newscast stories of refugees risking their lives to cross the Mediterranean for a better life. The greatest refugee crisis in history could not be ignored. Gone, Birds and the title track are most pointedly about beaches, waves, boats, movement, hopeful new beginnings and tragic endings.
Yet, the lyrics make the travelling inclusive of us all. Ross says, “This album is about the journey we all take into the dark. You come to that point in your life where – whatever you’ve been told, whatever the evidence you’ve been presented with – you just don’t know what the answer is. At which point you can only rely on instincts of your heart. You either take the leap or you don’t.”
So, Deacon Blue drop the weightiest depth charges in the gentlest ways into our journeying souls.
“Oh the toughest test
is not the way we came into this world
Or the way it ends
yes the toughest test
Is what lies between and what we do
With the time we get
There’s a hole in the middle
We gotta work out how to fill it in.”
(Meteors)
You can’t know everything
You’re such an innocent soul
You can’t learn anything
Unless you let somebody show you
And you’ll not know everything
Even if you started right now
You must trust someone
Cause someday darling trust’s all you know”
(You Can’t Know Everything)
With Deacon Blue they can journey into that dark but they always carry light and hope and faith and indomitable love. The Believers believes in a better day:
Step on a boat
Go on a journey
May it take you to heaven
And never bring you back again
So you no longer fear the boatman
Or the swell of the ocean.”
Birds believes that “one day we’re going to be free” and:
“We’re high above jail walls and windows
We’re high above the waves of worry
We’re floating on the wind
Cause nothing can begin
To make us want to land again.”
This Is A Love Song maybe says it best of all:
“Love is enough
Love will do
Love last longer than
Anything we’re going through
Love is enough”
The lyric sheet is called The Believers Hymn Book. It’s a subtle pointer to the spiritual surmises, questions and insights that this collection of songs contain. There is little question that Ross’s faith is an underwriter here but he’s not proselytising. This is about belief in humanity, in the right choices to side with those whose journey into darkness needs our helping hand. It’s an inspirational piece of rock music to fire imaginations and make wake up calls:
“I can no longer watch
I can no longer wait
I can no longer hope
I have come awake.”
(Come Wake)
It is likely to bring Deacon Blue their highest chart placing since 1994. Who’d have believed it! I’m a Believer!
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