Heaven & Earth album review | IMRO MQ magazine

THE 4 OF US continue to make music of lasting quality. By Justin Dowling

In the topsy turvy world of music where styles and trends have a life-span shorter than the freshness quotient of a pint of milk, THE 4 OF US stand the test of time, making music impervious to the influence of passing fads.

All of this goes some way to explaining why a band like THE 4 OF US (the nucleus of which remains Brendan and Declan Murphy) are a national treasure right now. Although the band have been around since the late '80s, the music that they make is of lasting character, making enduring impressions on the minds of those who give it their time.

How else could it be explained that Mary, one of the band's earliest hits, continues to be one of the most recognisable songs played on Irish radio. Equally, how could it be that a recent effort like Sunlight has been saturating the airwaves despite the fact that it was only released as a promotional single and unavailable on commercial release.

The answer lies in the view that THE 4OF US, as keepers of the song, stay true to the very heart and soul of Rock 'n' roll.

It is on the eve of the release of their fourth studio album heaven & Earth that I get to meet up with the main man Brendan Murphy.

"Y'know," he reflects," some of the most amazing things about the music business are accidentals and the off the cuff decisions that end up working for you. It's the thought-out strategies that end up falling flat on their face!"

Brendan is commenting on the radio success of Sunlight and speaks with the convictions of a man who has experienced the exciting unpredictability of being in the music business.

So given the success of the single in the airplay charts, why wasn't Sunlight ever released commercially?

"There was no game plan", he states in an earnest protest of sorts, "there's just something exciting about having about having literally just finished a song and throwing it out there to get feedback straight away. It is hard to get people excited about what you are doing when they think they know what's coming so the success of Sunlight helped our confidence and let us know that we were working along the right lines as far as the album was concerned."

If Sunlight was to be the precursor to something great, then the album Heaven & Earth is just that - quite simply a great album delivered by individuals who refuse to deal with the substandard. Thematically, Heaven & Earth moves effortlessly between love, faith, greed and nostalgia; treated in songs that are masterfully crafted and instantly catchy.

To this writer, the album is sonically urban, a soundtrack to capture times spent amongst the bustle of the concrete sprawls of London or New York. Was there a specific approach to making this album?

"Well, I view myself in the tradition of narrative songwriters, I prefer storytelling", he emphasises. "The idea to me is that each song is a scene that you can set up, so with this album I was looking for 10 or 11 different scenes in order to create the different stories that emerge."

With Heaven & Earth being only the fourth studio album from THE 4 OF US in the band's 14-year career, would you agree with the suggestion that the band are notoriously slow workers?

"Yeah!", he quips. " But I sort of feel comfortable with that now. I think that people who buy our records know that the reason they take such a long time is that we are just trying to get it right. But it does certainly have its disadvantages, in terms of momentum."

Between 1999's Classified Personal and the new album, THE 4 OF US put out Off The Record in early 2001 - a collection of mainly re-recorded favourites from the band's back catalogue. Aside from the stop gap effect of this record, there was a broader agenda to its release, as Brendan explains:

"It gave the band a chance to not only re-invent our back catalogue but because we had such a schizoid split between those who wanted to hear stuff from Classified Personal and those who wanted the stuff from six or seven years previous, it was a way to appeal to both sections of that audience and also a chance to reinvent ourselves."

Undoubtedly, THE 4 OF US have had an illustrious career. From the great successes of the first two studio albums (Songs For The Tempted and Man Alive) through to the work on the unreleased follow-on album (Amplifier), down to the present day, there have been many peaks and a few troughs. However, with Heaven & Earth lodged in the Irish charts, the band can look back with satisfaction across a career that has spawned a number of landmark albums.

What have been the highs and lows in THE 4 OF US musical journey?

"The worst moment was definitely the Amplifier album," Brendan says without hesitation. " about three-quarters of the way through I knew in my heart of hearts that it wasn't working, so the second best moment was when we decided not to put it out!"

And the best?

"There are too many, but making music is always one of them as it puts you at an advantage in terms of your ability to enjoy yourself because the reality is now that we do what we want, when we want and we answer to nobody. To be creative on your own terms is really where it starts and ends for me. The longer I am able to do that I really have nothing to complain about!"

And as long as THE 4 OF US continue to make music of a lasting quality and great album like Heaven & Earth neither will the fans.