Mares’ Tails review by Sounds XP

This is an album to fall in love with. From the opener ‘Terese’, Gareth Cavil has got your attention and your heart. You know the album is going to be painful at times to listen to and not in a bad way. The warnings are there. The solitary figure on the back cover looking through the lens at the Mares Tails signifies to me that the next twelve songs are going to contain a lot of soul searching and I am right.

This is Cavil’s second album and I must say, on the strength of this one, I am sad to say that the debut album passed me by though I will hunt it down now.

His vocals are velvety and you believe in them as he sings the kind of lyrics that poets were born to write. The album is so inspirational that I cannot even write a review about it without using flowery language!

Songs like ‘Plastic Bag (That’s my flag)’ are composed to within an inch of perfection and it’s a song that you could just play again and again. I would love to hear this sung live.

Maybe it’s because he is based in Leeds that he can deliver such a depressing and yet beautiful account of an array of subject matter. The likes of ‘Pennine Town’ shows that Cavil absorbs his surroundings and turns it into music.

Who knows what ultimately influences Cavil but when a man can hold your attention as he sings songs about what appear to be trivial things like plastic bags and clumsy hands and give them a powerful significance, who cares? He even brings a beautiful quality to Planespotting.

It all ends with the wonderful ‘Small moments’ which reminds me of ‘Wickerman’ by Pulp.

It is simplicity and the magical combined to produce songs about the everyday that become the remarkable. Look for him.
—Mary B, SoundsXP