Whatever happened to middle of road music? The kind of songs that were the mainstream when the New Seekers ruled over the kind of comfy television that your Granny would have approved of. The kind of songs that made Butlins great. Ah, those were the days!
Anyway, it was something of a surprise to find those kinds of songs are still being produced and, surprisingly, still being produced in Scotland. Freedom of Sound, - for it is they - are two Scottish based musicians, Steve Harrison and Alan Cunningham, who unleash all those good old-fashioned song writing skills within the twelve tracks of their album “Sunshine”.
“Sunshine” proves to be an appropriate choice for an album title for none of these songs are designed to depress and most of them provide the kind of mood enhancement that would make a cruise ship circle the Mediterranean until dawn. Helping them on this musical endeavour is Amanda Lyon who hits these songs like someone who knows exactly how to sell yesterday’s hits to a worse for wear wedding audience and that very poise and confidence duly provides more than enough reason to keep your attention on those songs all the way through to the end of this album.
I would assume that the whole point of the album – and this might explain the dull cover art - is to highlight the song writing skills of the two gentlemen behind it but the album actually succeeds in providing a very effective advertisement for the vocal talents of Amanda Lyon. My ears have absolutely no problem with that.