<p><span><span><span>- Steve Smyth has returned with a seemingly ambitious project, a four EP collection titled: <em>Blood</em><em><strong>, </strong></em><em>Matches, Fractures and Celebration.</em> It's a collection of works inspired from within the humanity of consonance. The first part of this series is <em>Blood</em>, a generous and even tempered prelude.</span></span></span></p>
<p><span><span><span>Far from Smyth’s previous albums, <em>Blood</em> is absent the thrusts and roars of his former rowdy self. After his 2014 album <em>Exits</em>, the Australian songwriter decamped to Barcelona to write, his relocation having a distinct effect. <em>Blood</em>, as a whole, is seasoned with a flair that only the physical changes of time and place can inform. The electric guitar, the rock and blues tropes, the obvious reference to prior influences have all been integrated into an intimate persona in the foreground and a nebulous realm of sentiment and sound that breathes with every excitation. </span></span></span></p>
<p><span><span><span>Now with a nylon string guitar and a greater command of his extensive vocal range, Smyth is more available as a new kind of romantic, his stories taking on a flamenco spirit, a dance of interpersonal reflections on the cultural and political. Opening song <em>Need It In Need</em> is a perfect introduction with references to Hemmingway’s <em>For Whom The Bell Tolls</em> and its Spanish context juxtaposed with the disembodied and distant lap steel harmony around him. </span></span></span></p>
<p><span><span><span>As the EP unfolds, you’ll hear bowed double-bass and ethereal choirs of horns, distant and divine, elongating and amplifying Smyth’s visceral presence. His lyricism taking on a deeper symbolism above these acoustic pulses, blood as life and death, love and loss, as a vital drink taken in abandon or ceremoniously, figuratively and literally. Lead single <em>Stages</em> is beautiful in this regard, the entendre and the arrangement are arresting in their drama and deliverance. </span></span></span></p>
<p><span><span><span><em>Blood</em> reanimates Steve Smyth’s sense of song, his rock history now available within the peripheral and in obtuse nods, as a body of work it stands confidently on its own. The four part venture remains to be heard but this introduction is a sincere and vulnerable invitation into a sound and story that are only comparable to the writer himself.</span></span></span></p>
<p><span><span><span>- Nicholas Rodwell.</span></span></span></p>
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