Artist – Mike Ryan
Album – The Space Where You Should Be
Release date – 21st June 2025
Reviewer – Ian D Hall, Liverpool Sound and Vision
The Space Where You Should Be is often filled with the ghosts of others who are determined to gatekeep success and enlightenment as a preserve of the envious and resentful, those who see your power or even your potential and focus only on keeping you out lest you displace their coveted position in people’s hearts and minds.
Mike Ryan’s place is assured through the tenacity of progression and the refusal to bow to the dogmas of war and musical dramas of another’s plectrum and strings, and as the haunting and cool procession of his brand new album, The Space Where You Should Be, settles on the dust of the past and raises its own place where heavenly sounds can be heard.
Everything to its own place and time, and its purpose becomes apparent when we open our senses to hear the music of the artist sent our way, and for Mike Ryan as he follows on from All We Have Is Now as a kind of companion piece but markedly different in sentiment, an album which perhaps is connected by threads of time as we ask ourselves of how we achieve serenity in a period of time that has laid out confusion and confession as stumbling blocks upon the highway; and to which advice and caution, and a heartful of respect comes from within Mike Ryan and his songs of fortitude and protective pleasure.
Across tracks such as Breath Again, Lily’s Last Waltz, Heaven Won’t You, The Distance, and the gorgeously intricate finale of Palace Of The Peacock, what Mike Ryan has produced is the great songs of difference, these tunes are more than just ballads of time or even infectious insights to the human psyche delivered with piercing vibe, they are accolades of the human heart bearing strength in all manner of themes and viewpoints.
It is with delight and serene welcome back to Mike Ryan, in a world full of opinion, the soothing nature of his music is to behold and be thankful for.
Review © 2025 Ian D Hall for Liverpool Sound and Vision
Night is released by 471 Records and is available to download from Bandcamp.
Mike Ryan
More links available at linktr.ee/mikeryanmusic
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Album review: Mike Ryan – The Space Where You Should Be