Album Reviews
‘Reminiscence Deftly Trips’ - a piercingly sharp reflection of memory (November 27, 2009)
The new album from Colin Holt - ‘Reminiscence Deftly Trips’ -
is exactly that, a piercingly sharp reflection of memory from days long-gone. Colin
has written a selection of songs that touch the sentiments you thought
childhood had hidden away. He has an incisive ability to express his feelings
and to touch ours at the same time.
‘Chasing Rainbows’ is every memory of childhood you ever
experienced – chasing impossible rainbows and breaking all the rules. And if
you don’t have similar memories, just enjoy Colin’s recollections of lost
summers. ‘Annual August Bank Trip’ is another song about growing up and
experiencing the fast-vanished freedom of the annual trip to the seaside. For a
child who knew the hard lives of working men it’s a snapshot of a life the
modern world has eroded. The slightly flippant approach to the chorus makes it
a tear-jerker for those of us who lived through the same times. If you’ve ever
experienced youthful ‘love from afar’ then ‘Same Old Track’ will awaken those sensations.
Far more than that, it’s also a grown-up, beautifully crafted love song – and
there are not many of them around.
‘Farnley Wood’ moves slightly away from his more private observations.
A touching narrative song, it tells the story of a plot to capture the Royalist
stronghold of Leeds city in 1663, after the Civil War and Restoration of
Charles II. Betrayed by one of their own, six men were arrested, imprisoned and
suffered dreadful traitors’ deaths being hanged, drawn and quartered. ‘Fly the
Long Way Home’ closes and once more we are in Colin’s world. Again it reaches
out to tug your feelings with its tale of coming home.
Buy it and this album will play repeatedly as you identify
more and more with one man’s ‘rear-view mirror examination’ of memory and the
way it binds us to our roots and to each other.
 The Colin Holt Band is Colin Holt (guitar, vocals) Adam
Nolan (keyboards) Miles Keith (mandolin, banjo, accordion, backing vocals) Phil
Udall (upright bass, fretless bass) and Doug Tones (drums). Also on this album
are Nino Cotone (violin) and Pietro Lusvardi (bowed bass).
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