It All Comes Down To This

Back in May we went to see A Certain Ratio play their then newly released  album It All Comes Down To This in full and in order followed by a hits and favourites set. We were down the front on the left, near Martin Moscrop. The gig was being filmed- during The Big E we were asked to give it our best audience singalong that we manage and I thought we sounded pretty good. The gig has just been released as a film, made by director Sebastian Faits- Divers, with the ten songs from the album in order interspersed with snippets of interview with the band and members of the audience. 

ACR stripped themselves back to a three piece for It All Comes Down To This, with producer by Dan Carey at the controls, each member mostly sticking to their main instrument, and Dan adding bits of keys, with as few overdubs as possible. As mentioned in the film (by Dave Haslam) the album is as good as any ACR have made in the forty plus year history. Live, their recent recruit Viv takes on Jez's bass duties and singer Ellen Beth Abdi adds her vocals. The film is great, the gig brought to life six months later, the interviews an insight into the band and the way they work, and the songs are superb from the title track through to the closer Dorothy Says, Jez channeling Dorothy Parker in his lyrics, 'If you want to know what God thinks of money/ Just look at the people who've got it' and 'I plan to die at the very last minute', as well as a wry line about homosexuality. It's a great document and performance and I hope we're going to get the second half at some point too.