Someone Else's Party

Aside from the constant press intrusion and the inability to buy pint of milk without being recognised, the biggest downside to being at fame's forefront is audience expectation. As Durutti Column lynchpin Vini Reilly's greatest brush with celebrity in the last 25 years has been playing on Morrissey's 'Viva Hate' album, he's always been free to follow his own idiosyncratic will, as punk, the 80s and Madchester have swept through his hometown. 'Someone Else's Party', is hardly a departure. Dedicated to and inspired by Reilly's late mother, there is an extra poignancy to the fragile beauty of many of his trademark shimmering guitarscapes. Ever looping and hypnotic, the intensity ebbs and flows; what begins as sunlight on water in trippy opener 'Love Is A Friend' becomes a stiflying sticky heat on the stunning, haunting 'Requiem For My Mother', as Reilly almost whispers, "Dear mother, just lay yourself down to sleep/I'll miss you now, so many tears will I weep". There's enough throat-catching glory here worth begging, stealing or borrowing a ticket to this (funeral) party.