The first review for my new album "If You Cant Forgive You Cant Love" - Its's a 5 Star one which i'm over the moon with. "Outstanding"
"Arguably his finest set of songs to date"
Thank you so much Ian D Hall for thIs x
Anyone wanting a copy here is the pre-order link
John Jenkins, If You Can’t Forgive You Can’t Love. Album Review.
Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *
To apologise is hard, to forgive is challenging, and yet we are urged from early in life to see forgiveness as a way of promoting love for one’s self, to be able to move on from the perceived sleight, the moment of indiscretion, of the falling foul to all that makes us human; yet forgiving seems to be the hardest emotion to conquer, it would seem for many the easier option is make life intolerable for someone, to put them down, to find ways in which to destroy another human being just because they made a mistake.
If You Can’t Forgive You Can’t Love, not necessarily the action of regaining the adoration of another, but in the response to your own soul, and it is the soul that is the most important factor to consider when weighing up to forgive, (maybe not even forgetting) or going down the endless cycle of repeating recriminations. It is a cycle that leads to destruction, but also one that can add melody and beauty to the heavy heart encountered in the melancholic and the lament, and one so vibrantly captured in sheer expression by John Jenkins in his incredibly passionate and vibrantly elegiac album, If You Can’t Forgive You Can’t Love.
To know John Jenkins is to love him, and safe in the knowledge that there is nothing to forgive as he reveals the heart on his sleeve and shows his mind to be open, precise and modest as he has ever been, and what is perhaps arguably his finest set of songs to date, the truth of the moment becomes clear, that whilst separately the songs could be seen as hugely important, it is when they are placed together that they become a tonic, a restorative, a piece of art that understands that sadness is not to be shunned, but accepted as a monument to our emotional resonance and how we bring ourselves back into the light.
The album’s tracks, of which several have made their way gloriously into the minds of the listener during the course of the year so far, Kathleen, The Last Train From Baltimore, The Wrong Side Of Sadness, Strangers On A Train, Living Someone Else’s Life, When The Morning Comes and Desert Hearts, are complimented by the song Is That What They Say, a dramatic song of lost opportunityand regret, punctuated by the belief of how we hope those who brought us into the world would hopefully see us at our best, would still love us.
With the award-winning Rob Vincent, Amy Chalmers, Dave Orford, Lee Shone and Alison Benson all weaving their own sense of magic and occasion into every sweet moment that the album provides, If You Can’t Forgive You Can’t Love, becomes the centre-piece into which the emotions of the listener become wonderfully entangled with that of the artist; like being captivated and admitting to being awe-struck in front of a painting by Constable, Turner or Maclise, or feeling your heart pushed to a new boundary of belief by the poetry of Keats or Anne Askew, so John Jenkins has plainly, undoubtedly, presented his own art with exceptional understanding. Outstanding!
John Jenkins releasees If You Can’t Forgive You Can’t Love via Fretsore Records on August 6th.
Ian D. Hall