As the final act before their hiatus – coming after three critically praised albums in a decade - Live at the Trades Club Hebden Bridge is Cherry Ghost performing an intimate, starkly arranged set at the 2015 Heavenly Weekender. Released now for the first time – on double vinyl – this is perhaps the best realised collection of songs from Cherry Ghost, the alias of the Ivor Novello award-winning songwriter Simon Aldred.
The instrumentation – Aldred is joined on keyboards and light percussion by Christian Madden and Grenville Harrop – brings to the fore Aldred's peerless songwriting, his oak-aged, prematurely wisened baritone. All of human life is here – tracking a drizzly Northern gothic of last bus loneliness, late-night Spars, solitary drinkers, factory floors and Gods that betray. And yet, there's more than meets the eye. There's magnetic renderings of his best known songs - 4AM, People Help the People, the soaring Mathematics - but surprises reveal themselves. All I Want and Herd Runners candidly examine Aldred's sexuality, whilst the seldom heard b-side Bad Crowd reveals Aldred to be a much funnier songwriter than remembered.
What runs right through Aldred's work, however, is a yearning – a much tested faith in romance – so no wonder that the album ends on its most optimistic notes, at the darkest point of winter nestled in the West Yorkshire valleys, promising clear skies ever closer.
Cherry Ghost - Live At The Trades Club, Hebden Bridge
A1. Drinking For Two
A2. Herd Runners
A3. 4am
A4. Fragile Reign
B1. Sacramento
B2. Thirst For Romance
B3. My God Betrays
B4. Throw Me To The Dogs
C1. All I Want
C2. False Alarm
C3. Bad Crowd
C4. Please Come Home
D1. Mathematics
D2. Four Eyes
D3. People Help The People
D4. Clear Skies Ever Closer