The August 2010 issue of Classic Rock magazine includes a very favourable review of The Eternal Struggle For Justice by Dave Ling.

The album’s 10 tracks are imbued with swagger and inclined to creep up on you.

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You could call it power-pop, some might call it progressive-pop, Willie calls it Eclecto-pop. I call it brilliant.

…probably the best power pop album to be released in 2010.

The Sun has reviewed The Eternal Struggle For Justice.

…conjures up bewitching melodies to drive home wry, thoughtful lyrics about the world around us.

“The band comes through in spectacular fashion, in fact it would be easy to picture this album as a hit musical soundtrack.”

Powerpopaholic

What can I tell you about this album? Start simple I guess. It has ten tracks in total, seven of which I have written, a couple of collaborative efforts: one between guitarist and vocalist, Guy James and myself, The Great Unknown, and one written by my long time friend, multi-instrumentalist and musical collaborator John Steel, with a wee musical contribution from me in the middle section of his song, Someone Who Cares.

This is the first occasion that we’ve included lyric sheets for an album. To tell the truth, I’ve always been a little reluctant to do this in the past because I felt personally, that whenever I’d had the lyrics to an album by a band, that I had a tendency to rush ahead of the game and read them before listening to the lyrics in context with the music, and quite often I’d judge them for poor rhymes or weak substance, when in truth, the sum of the two is generally more meaningful, or at least, makes more of a connection, than when read separately.

So why include them this time? Do you remember a questionnaire we sent out some time ago asking for your various thoughts and opinions? It seems that there was more interest than I’d realised in including lyrics, so in the spirit of a piss poor democracy, they’re included this time.

It generally takes several months or longer, after I’ve finished an album until I can review what’s been written with any kind of attempt at distance or objectivity, and I can see now that there are some very apparent threads linking the subject matter of songs together on The Eternal Struggle For Justice (or ESFJ as it will now be referred to in order to combat repetitive strain injury). In fact, bizarrely, for me at least, both Gramophone Logic and Bipolar Diversions were thought to be, vaguely conceptual by some, but I don’t think I’d ever have the patience to think in such a complex manner, and suspect any attempt to do so would inevitably end up sounding contrived.

With ESFJ it seems there was the economic crisis to draw upon, and the way in which modern contemporary living (in my opinion at least) has done its best to reduce everything, to its monetary value, the theme of We Sold It All. More immediate was the outrage at bailing out a corrupt and immoral banking industry and having to pay for the privilege, probably for the rest of our lives, with my current personal favourite from the album, Baby I’m a Killer (originally titled ‘The Bankers Song’ but changed because it was stating the bleeding obvious).

Elsewhere, you’ll find me tilting at some of my favourite thematic windmills while John chips in with a rather more philosophical point of view in his song Everyone Becomes The Road They Take, another personal favourite of mine.

This is the first new collection of songs we’ve put out through a different label to our own, and ESFJ will I hope, be far more accessible than any of our previous releases. As ever, I would like to encourage you to share the music with anyone you think would like it, and drag them down to a live show when we get around to doing some.

You’ll find links to various on-line sites where you’ll be able to buy digital versions or order CDs (distribution through Cargo) on the main page of the site. Let us know if you experience any difficulties and we hope you enjoy the songs.

All the best

Willie

The “Summer 2010″ issue of Classic Rock magazine includes an interview with Willie. It is available in the shops now (Ronnie James Dio on the cover).

The Examiner