Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating 9/10

You can dip in and out of an album at will, arguably it is the one art form that you can entertain the idea of the listener dictating of how it is to be visualised in their minds without causing a fuss; but like a painting by Constable, a French cinema examination of a woman’s life in the shadows, or series of novels where the heroics and pain are entwinned with each page being read in the right order, so an album should truly be held in esteem enough to never question the integrity and thought of the musician who asks of you a simple request…listen to how the album plays out in the mind of its creator at all times.

To place your trust in the hands of the artist from start to finish is not an act of obedience, it is an act of will and trust, and whilst we might feel a particular movement, a moment of time within the boundary allotted might rankle with us, it is this Phantom Thread that provides the listener with the means to appreciate the whole. It is like understanding all that the Victorian era had to offer historically, but not acknowledging the Georgian or The Stuarts, and dismissing the fall out of the two-faced assault on the 20th Century that followed the draconian and emotional austere period.

Appreciating the whole experience is a must, and absolutely essential in Steve Dawson & The Telescope 3’s latest release of Phantom Threshold, for if you dare skip through, if you choose to discount even a part of this tremendously driven album, the disservice you are showing to art is unfathomable, and unconscionable.

This instrumental piece of art glows across its entire frame, it sparks with enough energy to light up a house in a forest and a heart in need of love and excitement, and as tracks such as Burnt End, Ol’ Brushy, The Waters Rise, That’s How It Goes In The Relax Lounge, Tripledream, and Lily’s Resistor wrestle with the silent but undaunted imagination pulsating with fierce existence, so the drama, the need, the want, the end product, shines through.

As with anything worth time, Steve Dawson & The Telescope 3’s Phantom Threshold is one of continuation, of presence in its own space and one that excels beyond, an album of charisma and authority in every way.