SOLID SINGER-SONGWRITER FARE FROM ONE OF MUSIC'S CRAFTSMEN

JS / Maverick Magazine (UK)
Rob Heath / One More Day above Ground

Solid singer-songwriter fare from one of music’s craftsmen. Warm, welcoming, comfortable, familiar even, seldom brash or edgy, plenty going on and a few wow moments that make your heart stop in wonder.

ONE MORE DAY ABOVE GROUND is an optimistic set of songs that takes its cue from the slightly sardonically named title track. Heath’s barmaid asks: ‘Life ain’t fair boys/so what’s your second choice?’ and elsewhere he does a fair job of demonstrating that nobody really needs one. Love songs (Mystery of You, Watching) sit alongside who-can-deny-it philosophy (Why Not Stand Out) and a hymn to the power of music (Flying Machine).

Heath is too good to let the listener get too comfortable though. The callous and indifferent cops who drive a drunk out of town to die in the snow in Starlight Tours (probably based on the true story of Neil Stonechild) and the veteran’s nightmare that is To Come Back From His War jar the senses at the amount of sheer cruelty and horror in the world. This is an optimistic album in general though and never more so than on the final track, What If They’re Right? Again probably founded in truth, it tells how the body of an Arab child shot by Israeli soldiers by mistake is donated for use in Israeli transplant operations. ‘If we want peace/somewhere it has to start’ says his father, a thought and hope particularly relevant now.

With a voice as warm as a winter fire and a finger picking guitar style Heath sounds exactly like what he is: a song craftsman and a mighty good one at that. Sometimes we forget that craft should be esteemed as highly as art, if not higher. People like Rob Heath remind us.