Peter Conway
Album: Stay
Label: Self Released
Tracks: 12
Website: http://www.peterconway.net

Some cds come to as part of a carefully orchestrated media campaign, others through recommendations made by friends, journalists and other presents, still more by encounters with the artist during the interval of a gig or some other appropriate break in the music, Peter Conway's album, "Stay" was via a serendipitous encounter in a London pub that we'd both ended up in having originally supposed to be somewhere else. With so much responsibility for getting hold of a copy of this album in the lap of the gods, it had a lot top live up to, to prove worthy of that intervention.

Visually it's set out like a 1970s album, the front cover wouldn't look out of place on a Dylan or Lou Reed album of the period, with the track listing have a distinct break to lay out an a and b side. That look and feel continue into the album, which though penned and arranged by Peter Conway, in the main, feels as though it could have easily come out of the Brill Building.

"Stay" has got that hurried, unfussy feel of an album that knows it's own strengths and feels that it's got nothing to prove, you know you can take it at face value, because right from the opening song, "I Found My Faith In You" it delivers on its promises and rapidly starts to get that songbook feel, good honest songs, rich in poetry, that you can just kick back and listen to.

This is not an album that flames and flashes, "Stay" is far more about experiencing the honesty held in the writing, simply aided and abetted by Peter Conway's not inconsiderable vocal chords. There is a hint of the past about the album, but they are echoes of that pop-rock sound pioneered by the likes of Carole King and that's not a bad thing.

I can see why the fates conspired to get us into a London pub at the same time, "Stay" is an album worthy of seeking out, it's packed full of rich songs, that have been given Peter Conway's personal treatment both sides of the desk and you call feel the characters and streets coming to life as he sings the songs, not a lot more you can ask of an album than that.

Neil King